Biofuels hit the wall

Just a short while ago, biofuels seemed like they’d be a great alternative for some petroleum based fuels. But in the last year, we’ve seen the demand for corn skyrocket, and issues are being raised about balance between biofeuls and the demand for food supply. This story from PlanetArk.com indicates that there appears to be a finite limit to biofuels close at hand.

BIOFUELS: ANOTHER GREEN DREAM IS FADING QUICKLY
by Nao Nakanishi

HONG KONG - The earth is too small to accommodate all the biofuels projects envisioned for the globe, and this raises doubts whether green fuels will ever play a big role in weaning the world off crude oil.

The idea of producing an endless supply of inexpensive fuel from what sprouts from the soil seemed almost too good to be true for a world worried about global warming, caused in part by the burning of fossil fuels.
And perhaps it is. It has become increasingly clear that it will not be possible to grow enough crops to cover global demand for food and fuel, especially as water is becoming scarce and pressure is mounting from the environmental lobby to conserve tropical rainforests and wildlife.

Over the past year, a biofuel boom worldwide has already sharply boosted agricultural prices, sparking worries over food supply as the world’s population continues to grow.

David Jackson, an analyst at LMC International Ltd in London, calculated that the world would need an additional 100 million hectares of farmland if all countries were to blend 5 percent of biofuels into the cars — as many envisage by 2015.

The required land, about half the size of Indonesia, would match roughly the total additional land available for farming on earth, including remote areas of Africa or Brazil.

Gore to share Nobel Peace Prize with Canadian

According to Investors Business Daily, Al Gore will be awarded the Nobel Peace prize and share it with Canadian climate researcher Sheila Watt-Cloutier.

IBD writes: “…a couple of global warming alarmists. With dozens of wars raging, the committee couldn’t find a single person laboring honorably for peace?”

Meanwhile:

“Court Identifies Eleven Inaccuracies in Al Gore’s ‘An Inconvenient Truth’” - “Here’s something American media are virtually guaranteed to not report: a British court has determined that Al Gore’s documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” contains at least eleven material falsehoods.”

Looks like Al will be the first “warmmonger” to win a Peace prize by pitching a faulty slide show.

I wonder if, should we see a global cooling period in about 20 years as solar activity wanes as the sunspot cycle takes a big dip, if the Nobel committee will ask for that Peace Prize back like the Olympic Committee did for sprinter Marion Jones?