Nature had an article last week summarizing a report by a London-based think-tank entitled: "Biofuels: Ethical Issues." The full report can be found here. Like a number of reports recently, this one raised concern over current biofuel production, in particular its effect on access to food, and its negative impact on land use. They argue that any policy that encourages biofuel use, should adopt a strategy that includes adherence to six broad categories of ethical and environmental standards:
1) Respect people's human rights, including their right to access to food, health, and work.
2) Biofuel production should be enviormentally sustainable.
3) Biofuel production and use should yield a net reduction in total greenhouse-gas emissions.
4) Biofuel production should adhere to fair-trade principles.
5) The costs and benefits of biofuels need to be shared equitably.
6) Provided the above 5 conditions can be met, then there is an ethical duty to promote biofuels as a means to limit green house gas emissions, and encourage new jobs.
At the end of the day, if we want to produce biofuels that meet these criteria, we will need to develop technologies to break down cellulose efficiently and/or use plants such as algae as our biofuel production systems. Presently, almost all of the biofuel produced comes from crop which double as food-stock such as corn and sugar cane. If we were able to break-down cellulose easier, we could switch to using other crops such as switchgrass, which can grow in a variety of environments and not encroach upon food producing lands. Additionally, we could turn the unused, cellulose heavy portions of food crops into biofuel. For instance, the husks and cobs of corn are primarily discarded today, but might prove to be a good source for biofuel production if we were able to simply convert their cellulose into simple-sugars.
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