Biofuel and the flow on effects
An interesting article on the impacts of biofuels got me thinking about how we can better assess for ourselves the merits (or otherwise) of these various schemes. It seems to me that we need to develop a sort of environmental "common sense" that allows us to quickly judge the merits of particularly alternative energy sources, since by the reckoning of some commentators it may be the next bubble.
One useful approach is to think about the knock-on effects of any proposed scheme. Many such schemes are based on the concept of using an existing waste stream from some process, e.g., wood waste from the forestry industry, used fish and chip oil, etc. Implicit in this is that the waste stream would truly have been wasted, i.e., disappeared from the resource pool, if it hadn't been put to this use. The truth is that forestry waste will already be used somewhere, either to rebuild soil fertility in the forest itself or composted and used in some other agricultural process. Used chip oil, I don't know, but I'm betting it didn't just go into a hole in the ground.
The only true waste streams I can think of at the moment are nuclear waste and plastic shopping bags (not even sure about the latter). So, by using a supposed waste stream we are probably taking a resource from some other process. No such thing as a free lunch.
Equally, using land to grow anything is going to take away it's existing use, and there's very little (probably no) arable land on the planet that isn't being used for something. Even if it's not us that's using it but some other species that have as much right to live here (on Earth) as we have.