Green Groups Insist Biofuel Can’t Cure All Energy Ills

The goal of creating fuel from corn and rapeseed has long been to reduce oil and gas imports while lowering costs for energy companies and doing something good for the environment at the same time. But some groups in Germany say not all biofuels are created equal.

“There should not be a green light for all biofuels,” said Imke Luebbeke, an energy expert for the German World Wildlife Fund, adding that some renewable sources of energy are not necessarily good for the environment.
But while the WWF and other environmental organizations said that it is irresponsible to cut down large swaths of carbon dioxide absorbing rainforest to make way for renewable crops that could potentially be the power sources of the future, there is still room for Europe expand its fields of biofuel producing plants.

“A million hectares of farmland, that’s 10 percent of cultivable land in Germany, are fallow and this standstill is even supported by the government,” said Juergen Zeddies, an agricultural economist at the University of Hohenheim, adding that some of these fields could be used to grown renewable material for fuels.

Other environmental protection groups, however, warn that using all the fields for fuel material could lead to the extinction of a number of plant types in Germany as soil properties change due to the new crops.

Deutsche Welle