Biofuels: Saviour or villain?

4:39pm Wednesday 4th June 2008

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IT is no wonder the public is confused about just how environmentally friendly biofuels are.

In April, the Government ordered that at least 2.5 per cent of fuel sold on our forecourts must be biofuels. They must, therefore, be a good thing.

Indeed, biofuels play a crucial role in the future of the North-East economy.

Teesside, with its chemicalorientated workforce, is seen as the ideal base for a biofuels industry which by 2027 is expected to be worth £1bn.

As a first step, Ensus, of Yarm, near Stockton, is building a £300m bioethanol plant at Wilton, near Redcar, in east Cleveland, which, when operational, will buy 1.2 million tonnes of wheat from farmers, many of whom will be local.

Biofuels must, therefore, be good for all.

But just as these "green fuels" become readily available, horror stories about them emerge. Land on which developing countries grow food is apparently being turned over to grow biofuels crops, forcing up food prices and increasing starvation.

There are even tales that the rainforests - the carbonmunching saviours of the planet - are being chopped down to grow the fuels that will save the planet.

Then the Department for the Environment's chief scientist, Professor Robert Watson, says biofuels may produce more, not less, greenhouse gas.

So what is true?

FOOD VERSUS FUEL

ED MATTHEWS, of Friends of the Earth, said: "If you start to fuel cars with crops, you are instantly putting the world's one billion starving people in competition with the world's one billion motorists."

Worldwide food prices have increased by 75 per cent since 2005, partly, it is said, because the world is growing more fuel and less food.

East Durham farmer John Seymour is one of an increasing number of North-East farmers growing crops for biofuels, including rapeseed for biodiesel and wheat for bioethanol.

He is also the rural affairs spokesman for the Northeast Biofuels Consortium, which is planning a £1bn synthetic biofuels factory in the region.

He believes the issue is not food versus fuel, but food and fuel.

He said: "We are at one with Friends of the Earth when their biggest issue is land change use, but there isn't a land use change here in the North-East.

"In an 80-mile radius of Teesside, in the past 20 years we have produced 2.5m tonnes of high starch wheat a year."

High starch wheat is not as good for bread-making as milling wheat, which is low in starch and high in protein.

However, our climate makes growing milling wheat risky, so our farmers grow high starch wheat, which is exported for animal feed, while we import milling wheat to make our daily bread.

"Last year, we exported 900,000 tonnes of our wheat to Spain and Portugal. In the years where we can't find a fellow EU country to export to, it costs you and me as taxpayers a fortune in export restitutions, which are a form of subsidy.

"It is then dumped on third world markets where it destroys their own agricultural market.

"Instead of that, why not produce something from it?

"Once you have taken the starch out to produce ethanol, what you are left with is very high in protein. As animal feed it is better than soya meal and you then don't have to import soya from South America, so you are reducing your carbon footprint."

But Nick Davies, of Friends of the Earth, said: "It is increasing the amount of farmland needed for crop use for both food and fuel, so it adds to pressure on rainforests and other land, even if the crops are grown here.

"We might not be technically cutting down rainforests, but we are increasing the amount of land needed worldwide."

What's your view of biofuels - saviour or villain? Leave your comments below.