Today in Biofuels Opinion: “it is not difficult to cast biofuels as the villain of the piece”

June 4, 2008

US Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer, at the UN FAO Summit on the food crisis: “I’m not here to take offense. It seems to me that what we need to do is focus on the real issues. Focusing on biofuels will not solve the food crisis.”

Leo Lewis, London Times: “When it comes to the food crisis, it is not difficult to cast biofuels as the villain of the piece: biofuels are new, the food crisis is new and the two seem connected intimately. Even villains can serve a purpose. In this case, biofuels have been a barium meal for the globalised economy, exposing the astonishing fragility of food and energy supply so that the correct treatment can be applied. [Biofuels] have sounded a deafening klaxon over the global food system, revealing weaknesses that turn out to have riddled the food production business for many years.

Today in BIofuels Opinion: “We haven’t even begun to see the impact on the cost of food.”

Kent Barton, plant spokesman for Moroni Feed: "I don't believe consumers understand what's going to hit them next year. We haven't even begun to see the impact on the cost of food." Gary Truitt, Ho...

Today in Biofuels Opinion: “Where did the other 95 cents go?”

Josh Tickell, director of the award-winning biofuels documentary Fields of Fuel: "Corn may be environmentally detrimental, but it is difficult to pin the systemic problems in our international markets...

Today in Biofuels Opinion: “Who cares about the environment? Am I going to have a house next week?”

Fred Weiss, a carbon offset seller based: "People still come to the site, but where you used to get people signing up [for offsets] every day, now you’d be lucky to get a few people a week: [people ...

Wall Street Journal is bearish on ethanol prospects: “financing difficult”, some plants “under death watch”

Financing for new ethanol plants continues to become more difficult, with cancellations and delays becoming a norm, while a partner at Baker & McKenzie described some plants as "under death watch"...

Today in Biofuels Opinion: “the federal government’s wholehearted embrace of biofuels may be based on false premises”

The Ottawa Citizen editorializes: "Using food to produce fuel is hardly a crime against humanity...But credible economists like Princeton's Paul Krugman do fear that corn-based ethanol production is "...

Today in Biofuels Opinion: “Rarely has there been so much condescending feel-good hooey from anti-government conservatives and anti-big business, save-the-world liberals”

Bob Scott, president of the American Coalition for Ethanol: "Today, we face strong opposition, and their weapon primarily is the press." The editors of Forum.com: "The convergence of conservative...

Written by Jim Lane · Filed Under Opinion