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Page added on March 8, 2009
Ghana — Biofuels do far more harm than good
A number of foreign businesses have been storming Ghana in their quest to invest in the cultivation of sugarcane and jatropha for the production of biofuels for export. While this looks good for a country that is in need of foreign exchange, the country
Is there any trade crazier than the liquid biofuel business? Apart from a handful of cars and vans running on used chip fat, it exists only because of government rules and subsidies. So what social benefits do these buy?
Biofuels are supposed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They do the opposite. Almost all of them produce more greenhouse gases than petrol (gasoline) or diesel, for two reasons:
- emissions of nitrous oxide (a very powerful greenhouse gas) caused by the application of nitrogen fertilisers
- the destruction of grassland, wetland and forest caused by the expansion of agriculture stimulated by this new market (see this study on the biofuel carbon debt and this one on biofuels increasing greenhouse gases
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