Burning bio fuel creates CO2.
Any combustion of a carbon based product in air produces CO2 and that's a fact.
The idea is that a bio-fuel should be produced from a 'sustainable' source, and that by this means, as you produce CO2, the replacement crop is absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere. This is the first of many problems that are, as yet, unresolved.
Bio-fuel causes food shortages, higher food prices and starvation.
President Obama's view has undergone many changes, from this comment on 5th May 2008
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/05/obama-voices-do/
"With the world teetering on the edge of a full blown fuel crisis, it may be time to cut back on biofuel, said Barack Obama yesterday.
In an interview on NBC's 'Meet the Press' the Democratic presidential candidate said "there’s no doubt that biofuels may be contributing" to falling food supplies and rising prices.
"If it turns out that we’ve got to make changes in our ethanol policy to help people get something to eat, then that’s got to be the step we take," he said.
During the last year, global food prices have spiked, with food riots breaking out in more than 30 countries. The emerging crisis captured global attention after rice prices rose 50 percent in just two weeks in March, setting off protests in Indonesia, riots in Haiti and worldwide panic.
Some experts say that food is a more pressing problems than climate change — and with dinner-table crops now headed to refineries, the booming popularity of biofuels is partly to blame. About 100 million tons of grain — enough to feed 450 million people at a subsistence level — were turned into fuel last year."
The Gallagher Review by the UK government voiced the same concerns, going as far as to say
http://www.renewablefuelsagency.gov.uk/_db/_documents/Report_of_the_Gallagher_review.pdf"The report also addresses doubts about climate benefits. It claims that the use of biofuels has displaced food production and changed the use of land which in turn has resulted in a loss of biodiversity and could actually push up emissions of greenhouse gases instead of reducing them.
Gallagher states that the introduction of biofuels should be slowed until effective controls are in place to prevent land use change and higher food prices.
The review proposes that the current Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO) target for 2008/09 (of 2.5% by volume) be retained, but the proposed rate of increase in biofuels be reduced to 0.5% per annum, rising to a maximum of 5% by volume by 2013/14. This compares with the RTFO's current target of 5% by 2010."
Bio-fuel causing rainforest destruction.The directive to encourage bio-fuel production is actually causing the destruction of virgin rainforest.
http://euobserver.com/885/29410
The European Commission and some EU member states hope to redefine palm oil plantations as "forests," according to a leaked document from the EU executive.
Rules governing the use of biofuels were supposed to be designed to sort out the sustainable versions of the technology from their dirtier cousins following a massive backlash against it in 2008. At the time, an avalanche of reports revealed that many forms of the fuel source both increase greenhouse gas emissions and put pressure on food prices.
The production of palm oil was one of the most egregious examples of the problem.
In the wake of the biofuels boom, there has been a rush to chop down rainforests to make way for palm oil plantations. The UN says that the growth in such plantations is now the main cause of rainforest destruction in Malaysia and Indonesia.
Worse still are the land grabs and human rights abuses resulting from the lucrative business. In Indonesia, as EUobserver reported two years ago, when native communities complain about the loss of their lands, private security firms and police that collude with the oil companies crack down violently on protesters.
But in a manoeuvre that has shocked environmental campaigners, a draft commission communication offering guidance to EU member states on the use of biofuels has classified palm oil plantations - the source of one of the most destructive forms of biofuels - as "forests."
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/02/16/palm-estate-forest-says-ministry.htmlThe Forestry Ministry is drafting a decree to include oil palm plantations in the forest sector to comply with international standards in mitigating climate change.
The ministry said it believed the policy would not lead to massive forest conversion into palm oil plantations as many critics feared.
“By definition, oil palm plantations will be defined as forest, but its management will be under the Agriculture Ministry,” head of research and development at the ministry, Tachrir Fathoni told The Jakarta Post on Monday.
He argued that many countries such as Malaysia, the world’s second biggest palm oil producer after Indonesia, had included oil palm plantations in its forest sector.
“By doing so, Malaysia can reap financial incentives from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) of carbon trade,” he said.
He said that the UN only categorized trees with a certain height as forest trees, without identifying their species.
“It is to anticipate the implementation of the REDD scheme,” he said.
Reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) allows forestry countries to receive financial benefits by stopping tree lopping.
Bio-fuel doesn't come from sustainable sources and isn't carbon neutral.
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2005/12/06/worse-than-fossil-fuel/
Worse Than Fossil Fuel
In September, Friends of the Earth published a report about the impacts of palm oil production. “Between 1985 and 2000,” it found, “the development of oil-palm plantations was responsible for an estimated 87 per cent of deforestation in Malaysia”(8). In Sumatra and Borneo, some 4 million hectares of forest has been converted to palm farms. Now a further 6 million hectares is scheduled for clearance in Malaysia, and 16.5m in Indonesia.
Before oil palms, which are small and scrubby, are planted, vast forest trees, containing a much greater store of carbon, must be felled and burnt. Having used up the drier lands, the plantations are now moving into the swamp forests, which grow on peat. When they’ve cut the trees, the planters drain the ground. As the peat dries it oxidises, releasing even more carbon dioxide than the trees. In terms of its impact on both the local and global environments, palm biodiesel is more destructive than crude oil from Nigeria.
http://www.ecoworld.com/energy-fuels/biofuel-is-not-carbon-neutral.html
Biofuel is NOT “Carbon-Neutral”
Biofuel today is produced, overwhelmingly, from oil palms and sugar cane, and overwhelmingly, these plantations stand where tropical rainforest recently stood.
Monbiot states “Between 1985 and 2000 the development of oil-palm plantations was responsible for an estimated 87 per cent of deforestation in Malaysia. In Sumatra and Borneo, some 4 million hectares of forest has been converted to palm farms. Now a further 6 million hectares is scheduled for clearance in Malaysia, and 16.5m in Indonesia.”
One square mile is equivalent to 250 hectares. So using these figures, in just two countries, deforestation for biofuel will result in the loss of at least 100,000 square miles of rainforest. Along the West African coast and in the Congo basin, similar rates of deforestation are occuring in a mad rush to grow Cassava and Oil Palm. In Brazil, deforestation for sugar cane continues to accelerate.
I'll update and and strengthen the argument against bio-fuels as time goes by.