Biofuels Have A Major Problem
This once hailed climate technology has a deadly dark side.
In our fight to save the planet from a self-made climate apocalypse, biofuels seem like a no-brainer idea. By gathering combustible fuels from plants rather than ancient oil deposits, we can create a more circular carbon economy and reduce humanity’s net carbon footprint. This means there is no need for everyone to switch to fancy EVs, build a new charging infrastructure, or even construct vast solar farms and new nuclear power plants vital to supplying low carbon energy. Instead, all we need to do is simply switch the fuel source and keep everything else pretty much how it is. This could be a quick, simple, and cheap way to have a massive positive impact on the climate. But the war in Ukraine has highlighted how deadly and destructive this technology could be. So, are biofuels humanity’s climate saviour or a mortal threat?
Before we dive into these dangers, we first need to know what biofuels are. In the broad sense, “biofuels” is an umbrella term for fuels such as gasoline, kerosene, diesel, and ethanol derived from biomass (plant-based material used for fuel). We currently either use algae or food crops as this biomass, though, more specifically, food crops such as wheat, maise, corn, rapeseed, canola, and soy are by far the most common sources. Once collected, this…
