[...] I should point out that I’m actually in favour of small-scale biofuel production. I believe that we could retain a level of farm mechanisation, as well as running elements of a public transport system on biofuels. Biofuels are fantastic for so many reasons, not least that they can be produced in almost every part of the world that people live.
- comment on a previous post

The trouble is that, in my honest opinion, our society is not currently geared up to work this way. So long as the global dictatorship of market capital is in place (at the risk of sounding a bit Old Red) then those who produce biofuels will be doing so under a legal obligation to maximise profit.

This is the essential problem with any solution to the energy crisis that relies upon Big Business to implement it… they’re simply the wrong people for the job. And in a sense that’s not even their fault. We’ve legally tied their hands so that the only “solution” they can pursue must be the one that generates the most profit for their shareholders during the next business-cycle. And if that “solution” actually exacerbates the problem… well, that’s a “cost” that can be externalised. Sorry world.

It strikes me, therefore, that so long as we allow profit-driven corporations to be the primary agents of action within our society that biofuels — in practice — have to be ideologically opposed.

In an ideal world a council would decide to purchase or requisition a small plot of local land and set up a non-profit, publicly-owned and publicly-financed trust to hold that land and organically farm it for biofuels (preferably a multi-purpose crop like hemp). The oils produced would never appear on any market and would be used exclusively to fuel local public transport. And perhaps farm machinery on small sustainable farms. That’s a scheme I could get behind.

Unfortunately however; we live in a world of continent-wide targets and oil companies investing hundreds of millions of pounds. And the agrofuels / biofuels distinction is only useful to a point… because it seems to me that we’re witnessing the start of “Biofuels” being pushed almost like a brand-name. There’s a fecking massive advertisement on the Naas Road near where I live. It covers the entire side of a very long building… a car dealership. The entire billboard is filled with brightly-coloured high resolution sunflowers. “Powered by Nature” is superimposed in calm tones.

First up… like petroleum isn’t natural? What’s that all about? More importantly though, it’s an indication of where we’re going with this if we allow it. I’m not sure it’s possible — even now — to separate biofuels from BioFuels^TM.

Jatropha for example sounds like it might be groovy. It grows in barren land where fuck all else grows, so no habitats are destroyed and no crops are burned. It could be a much-needed source of income for some of the poorest parts of the world. See this article from the Guardian’s, ahem, shell-sponsored advertorial.

This dumb rush to biofuels, this setting of targets for their use by such and such a date, is already proving to be really damaging, but there is promise that some sustainable biofuel could happen. Nowhere near enough to meet world demand I’m sure, but some.