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Food vs fuel is the debate regarding the risk of diverting farmland or crops for biofuels production in detriment of the food supply on a global scale. Essentially the debate refers to the possibility that by farmers increasing their production of these crops, often through government subsidy incentives, their time and land is shifted away from other types of non-biofuel crops driving up the ...
While biofuels can contribute to reduction in global carbon emissions, indirect land use change for biofuel production can have the inverse effect. Technical issues include possible modifications necessary to run the engine on biofuel, as well as energy balance and efficiency.
An economic assessment published by the OECD in July 2008 [25] agrees with the World Bank report recommendations regarding the negative effects of subsidies and import tariffs but finds that the estimated impact of biofuels on food prices is much smaller. The OECD study found that trade restrictions, mainly through import tariffs, protect the ...
These indicate that a 1.25% increase in EU biofuel consumption would require around 5,000,000 hectares (12,000,000 acres) of land globally. [121] The scenarios varied from 5.6 to 8.6% of road transport fuels. The study found that ILUC effects offset part of the emission benefits and that above the 5.6% threshold, ILUC emissions increase rapidly.
Biofuel development and use is a complex issue because there are many biofuel options which are available. Biofuels, such as ethanol and biodiesel , are currently produced from the products of conventional food crops such as the starch, sugar and oil feedstocks from crops that include wheat , maize , sugar cane , palm oil and oilseed rape .
Biodiesel is produced from the oils in for instance rapeseed or sugar beets and is the most common biofuel in Europe. [citation needed] Second-generation biofuels (also called "advanced biofuels") utilize non-food-based biomass sources such as perennial energy crops and agricultural residues/waste.
Biofuels are considered a renewable alternative to fossil fuels in the transportation sector for the EU. The EU has played a large role in increasing the use of biofuels in member states; however, it has also aimed, to some extent, to mitigate the potential negative impacts of biofuel production.
The assumption is that the replacement of fossil fuels with fuels generated from biomass would have significant and positive climate-change effects by generating lower levels of the greenhouse gasses that contribute to global warming. Biofuels are only one component of a range of alternatives for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. Greenhouse ...