Alternative Fuels and the Food Supply

by Andrea Millar — April 9, 2008

This is a predicament. Prices climb as we continue to guzzle fossil fuels, but now that the quest to perfect a source of biofuels is finally being addressed seriously by governments, there is increasing talk that it is causing extreme food shortages across the planet. Having two Nobel Peace Prize winners, Rajendra Pachauri and Hartmut Michel, speaking at high-profile places like the European Parliament about the detrimental effects of biofuel production is some seriously bad PR.

Of course, the food shortage certainly is real. In Mexico, West Bengal, Egypt, Burkina Faso, and Camaroon, just to name a few, food riots and a few deaths have been the result of high prices of corn, rice, and wheat. Stateside, you may have been flinching a little more at the price of bread and other amenities. As ethanol makes its way into more and more gas pumps across the country, thanks in part to government subsidies, it's not difficult to point a finger.

But I'm not convinced--yet--that the shortages in food can be so easily located in increased cultivation of biofuels. Corn-produced ethanol may not be the ideal solution, but there is strong evidence that increased development and exploration in other forms of biofuel may provide the resources we need to solve things. Brazil's cellulose extraction system actually provides a means to glean comestible sugar. Garbage and other forms of waste are also providing tantalizing hints at their fueling potential. Grouping all forms of biofuel development in with the shortcomings of the first serious effort would be a real mistake, especially for a forerunner like the US.

With this matter going on, I can't help but detect the slight but distinct aroma of irony in all this talk of food and oil. It may be that along with tapering our dependence on oil, we must cut back also on gratuitous consumption of wheat products in the interest of the planet. Obese America may have the low-carb diet it'll finally have to stick to.