poo power
A year ago, they were the coming salvation; now they’re 
So what’s really going on with biofuels? (It would be so much easier to get you to read this if I substituted 
First, definitions. Two kinds of biofuel: biodiesel and bioethanol. Biodiesel is oil, and so tends to be made from fat: chip fat, or, if you’re a mid-Western turkey farmer, 
Palm oil is also widely used, which has been loudly protested, mostly because it has turned out to be the greatest cause of rainforest loss in Malaysia and Indonesia, destroying, amongst other achievements, the last habitats of the 
Nor is that the only nasty side effect of high demand. In Colombia, demand for palm oil is so high that it’s taking on some of the less attractive qualities of the cocaine market. Production has doubled in four years, but often in the hands of 
Biodiesel is also less than ideal in cars; filters need to be changed more often, it corrodes rubber pipes, and freezes at a higher temperature than conventional diesel, so needs to be mixed with something else in winter so your engine doesn’t get bunged up (technical term).
And all diesel now turns out to give you 
Bioethanol is alcohol, produced like all alcohol by fermentation. The best known is sugar cane bioethanol, which can be made very easily from maize, sugar cane and other things normally consumed by humans. Which, you may recall, caused a bit of a problem last year, as 
What has not been so often repeated is that the big food processors are also in the ethanol business, so they win both ways. 
In other words, the company benefits when the price of corn increases and desperate consumers turn to wheat instead. And they win again when by processing the corn into ethanol instead of flour. Whatever keeps the share price up…
Bioethanol can also, however, be made from things people don’t eat, and don’t use land that could be used for anything else: these are ‘second generation’ biofuels, which also use less energy to produce.
One way to do this is to ferment the stuff anaerobically (ie, in a big sealed container – it’s all in 
‘An old prawn sandwich is now an asset, not a liability’, says lovable 
In fact, all kinds of hitherto despised old rubbish can be turned to good use. Boeing has made jet fuel from the algae that grows naturally on 
The Swedes, ever practical, also turn the million cans of illicit booze they confiscate every year into fuel for trains and buses.
There’s an idea we could copy. Only we’d have to make it illicit first, of course.
So not all biofuels are bad; only when they compete with other rather vital things, like feeding people. But the real opportunities for biofuels are in the Third World where there’s no electricity grid, and lots of land that’s no good for any other purpose, and lots of space to process the fuel locally 
Instead of transporting conventional fuel in expensive pipelines, or building an electricity grid specially, it would make a lot of sense to have local production and consumption of fuel like this, in small, simple, community owned plants.
Rather irritating, then that, while $350 billion a year is currently spent subsiding ‘dirty’ energy, the 
Glad to see our money’s in enlightened hands.
