The wrong extremes on biofuel

Just when you thought George W. Bush and Fidel Castro were dead – one politically, the other literally – they’re back at it. Their new fight is about biofuel, the conversion of living things into liquid energy. One president says it’s an assault on nature and humanity.

The other says it’s an agricultural revolution that will liberate the masses. Mr. Bush is the revolutionary. Mr. Castro is the reactionary.
What critics of free trade forget is that people in rich countries aren’t just producers; they’re consumers. Competition from poor countries drives down wages but compensates by lowering prices.

Conversely, what critics of biofuel forget is that people in poor countries aren’t just consumers – they’re producers. Crop purchases by rich countries drive up prices but compensate by driving up incomes. Mr. Castro says turning food into fuel is a “waste,” but that’s not true. Fuel helps make food available and affordable.

Fidel Castro thinks the very idea of making fuel from food is “diabolical.”

But using food for fuel wasn’t Satan’s idea. It was God’s. Fuel is the whole point of food. That’s why edible crops such as corn and cassava are also easy ethanol sources: They’re loaded with energy- bearing starch.

Biofuel doesn’t feed people directly. But we’ve been diverting food from direct human consumption since we domesticated animals. Most of the corn we export today feeds livestock, not people.

Mr. Castro says Mr. Bush insists that biofuel “must be extracted from foods.”

That’s false. Mr. Bush points out that corn is an inefficient ethanol source. In its place, he touts sugar cane, wood chips and switch grass. Such “cellulosic” ethanol could lower the output of greenhouse gases and deliver up to six times the amount of energy its production requires.

If you want to help poor people, biofuel beats the heck out of oil.

In a biofuel economy, the chief asset is open land. Who has open land? Poor countries. Latin America has sugar cane. Africa and Asia have cassava. Switch grass, which grows in dry regions, will level the playing field further. Mr. Bush says that switch grass will empower the western United States. That’s nice, but the real story is that it’ll empower the Southern Hemisphere.

Dallas News