“Think tanks” across the political spectrum have been studying biofuels for years.  The potential collision course between fuel and food needs has been analyzed to bits in long complex reports.  From the Council on Foreign Relations (www.cfr.org) see, “The Cost of Rising Food Prices”, August 2007, by Toni Johnson, and “OECD: Biofuels: Is the Cure Worse Than the Disease?”, September 2007, by Richard Doornbosch and Ronald Steenblik.  On the Hudson Institute website (www.hudson.org):  Dennis T. Avery’s article for the e-journal “Enter Stage Right, Biofuels Forcing World to Ration Food Aid”, March 2008.  From the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations:  “Growing Bio-Fuel Demand Underpinning Higher Agriculture Prices”, a joint OECD-FAO report published in July 2007.

 

From  www.ethanolresearch.com the website of the National Corn-to-Ethanol Research Center, perhaps, not surprisingly, a resounding “No” to the question: “Will we run out of food if you convert our corn to ethanol?”

 

The topic is complex in its own right and a complex sub-topic of the ‘big-picture’ issue of moving forward with biofuel technology over other possible solutions to the energy conundrum.  A persuasive advocate for staying the course with bio-fuels is Vinod Khosla, best known as the founding CEO of Sun Microsystems who, in the last few years through his venture capital firm, Khosla Ventures, helps to build companies with “lasting significance” in the alternative energy and biofuel refining sectors.

 

The Khosla Ventures website includes a “papers and presentations” section (www.khoslaventures.com/resources.html) with a 32 page draft article entitled, “Food versus Fuel…?”  All the qualifications and doubts are raised.  Answers are given or suggested.  Khosla is convinced that “cellulosic and biomass-based biofuels… offer better potential solutions, higher efficiencies, and a better environmental footprint.”  And he notes that, “none of the university research, financial capital, or political backing for cellulosic would exist without the corn-based version, which proved ethanol’s functionality and the viability of a marketplace in the first place.”

 

In the newspaper National Post on April 8, 2008, Terence Corcoran asserts that, “biofuels [have become] a climate-policy game that lost sight of food” and that “no Canadian politician has yet been asked to answer for Canada’s role…[in sinking] Canada’s farm economy deeper into the arms of government policy [through] biofuels subsidies and mandates.”

 

Gerry Ritz, the Minister of Agriculture responded on April 11^th as follows:  “Canadian farmers are among the best in the world and they are already growing more than enough grains and oilseeds to meet our needs for both food and biofuels.  Only about 4.5% of Canadian crop production is needed to meet our biofuel goals.  The results will be dramatic for Canada’s environment: the equivalent of taking almost one million cars off the road.”

 

Back and forth, back and forth. Whatever happens, looks like some big changes are in the works.