They have no bread? Let them eat waste!
Sunday, July 13th, 2008 By James Nesbitt
The Guardian has obtained an unreleased World Bank study that finds the use of biofuels at fault for up to 75% increases in global food prices. Unsurprisingly, government officials are attempting to push the study aside and ignore it. The Guardian reports that the study remains unpublished to avoid embarrassing President Bush, who has heavily pushed biofuel technology.
“Political leaders seem intent on suppressing and ignoring the strong evidence that biofuels are a major factor in recent food price rises,” said Robert Bailey, policy adviser at Oxfam. “It is imperative that we have the full picture. While politicians concentrate on keeping industry lobbies happy, people in poor countries cannot afford enough to eat.”
As obtuse as politicians are, even they likely doubt turning essential sources of food into energy is next big thing since sliced bread. But they have important lobbyists and constituents to please, people who undeniably have an incentive to preserve this inefficient idea. Those with their lips planted less firmly on government’s…well, you know…have searched for other ideas, and predictably, they’ve come up with a much better idea. Privately-funded scientists at LS9, a Silicon Valley company which has been lured by high oil prices to develop new technologies, came up with something to turn into fuel that currently serves no important function: waste product. They have developed a bug which consumes unused agricultural waste and excretes crude oil. Two important things to note about this technology: because the end-product is petroleum, it will not require the costly technology upgrades that ethanol and many other biofuels will. It also provides more energy during combustion than it takes to produce, unlike corn-based ethanol. Although much development is still required to make it this fuel source viable, if politicians hadn’t gotten in the way with their inefficient, special-interest system in the first place, perhaps we’d already be powering our cars with bug…well, you know.
