Do Biofuels Fuel Poverty?Jun 30, 2008 | by gardengrrrl | Read | No Comments

BBC News reports that according to Oxfam Biofuel use ‘increasing poverty’.

“Biofuel use ‘increasing poverty’
A palm oil plantation in Ivory Coast
Palm oil is one of the biofuel crops stirring controversy

The replacement of traditional fuels with biofuels has dragged more than 30 million people worldwide into poverty, an aid agency report says.

Oxfam says so-called green policies in developed countries are contributing to the world’s soaring food prices, which hit the poor hardest.

The group also says biofuels will do nothing to combat climate change.”

What I find frustrating about such reports and the race to jump on the biofuel bandwagon is that we have completely missed the point of using biofuels. Growing crops, particularly food crops, to produce fuel makes no sense. In fact, corn isn’t even a particularly good source of biofuels. What makes a lot of sense is recycling wastes to produce biofuels.

Biofuel recycling in Olympia, WA at “The Reef“. Photo by DreamsJung. Used under creative commons licensing.)

In 1995 I saw this documentary, “Fat of the Land” about a group of women travelling across country asking greasy spoons to donate they frying oil to fuel their van. It was a fabulous mix of grrrls in 50’s dinner dresses and grrrls in getting greasy mixing chemicals. The lesson of the movies is that there are a lot of resources that go to waste in this country. Making better use of those resources makes sense. Hopefully since “Fat of the Land” was made there have been reforms in what happens to used vegetable grease and more of it is being recycled into biofuels. I haven’t done the research to know how many companies out there recycle waste cooking oil, but if you are interested, here’s one company in the Bay Area doing it - Blue Sky Bio-Fuels.

Bio-fuels can be a part of the solution but only if we do them right and recognize their limitations!