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The Old Battle Between Food and Fuel
US - Ethanol, the granddaddy of the biofuels movement, is in a food fight. Or a fuel fight. Or a food-versus-fuel fight. How about these for fighting words: A United Nations food expert recently described ethanol as “a crime against humanity.”, writes Todd Murphy.
Then, last month, an unpublished but much publicized World Bank report – leaked to London’s Guardian newspaper – concluded that ethanol production, especially in the United States, had raised world food prices by 75 percent in the past six years.
According to News Times, these reports followed a study published in Science magazine earlier this year suggesting that ethanol actually may produce more greenhouse gases than gasoline.
It’s enough to drive environmentalists to their electric cars. And the reports have certainly caused some trepidation within governments that for years have subsidized or supported ethanol.
But ethanol supporters aren’t just sulking passively amid a hail of hot dogs. They’re hitting back, arguing that while ethanol is far from perfect, its impact on world food prices is small, its effect on the environment is mostly positive, and the controversy is more about finger-pointing than it is about science.
Sustainable Life has decided to enter the fray, or at least crystallize the debate, by asking, and trying to answer, three central questions.
TheBioenergySite News Desk
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