Biofuels are renewable because they’re made from plants or animals, which grow. But sometimes biofuels are produced in ways that are not sustainable. Hungry people sometimes pay the cost. Can food security and biofuels go hand in hand?
Today Léna Durocher-Granger at CABI (‘Improving lives by solving problems in agriculture and the environment’) shows us a summary of thinking about food security and biofuels. I like the way Ms Durocher-Granger explains the ideas and suggests solutions.
[Edit] Here’s something I said a few months ago about funding for developing ‘advanced’ biofuels fed on algae.
Science on the Land 
I actually wrote a 15-page term paper about the food vs. biofuels issue, if you’re interested to read it. 🙂
Great post! I’ll check out that article too 🙂
Is your paper available online?
No, it’s not, but I can email it to you, if you’d like. 🙂
You could summarise it as a comment on my blog.
Okay, here goes! 🙂
Basically, I came up with 3 main goals that, if achieved, can help commercialize biofuels in a responsible and sustainable way: 1) innovations in the design of vehicles in the transportation sector (to be more compatible with pure biofuels instead of blends), 2) an agricultural paradigm shift from industrialized monocropping to ecologically-based, urban farming, and 3) diversity in biomass conversion technologies (i.e. biorefineries) to expand the market.
Has anybody achieved those goals?
I don’t know, from my research for my paper, I don’t think so.