Bioenergy and biofuel - watching what governments subsidize

Examiner.com (Chicago)
August 25, 6:39 PM
SF Foreign Policy Examiner Maria Lewytzkyj

Don’t go ballistic, but Michael Grunwald, award-winning environmental journalist and author of “The Swamp: The Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise,” says that alternative energy sources like biofuels, solar and nuclear are not the magic ticket. “It's nice that someone managed to run his car on liposuction leftovers, but that doesn't mean he needs to be subsidized,” he said. In the rush to promote alternative fuel sources he believes that governments might be picking energy losers rather than energy winners that might cripple efforts to stop global warming. In other words, let’s not hurry and do it right.

According to Grunwald, in fact in a rush to grow palm oil for the European biodiesel market, Indonesia destroyed many lush forests and peat lands. The result? A displacement of vegetation that soaked up even more carbon. Since deforestation is a huge contributor to global carbon emissions, local efforts to destroy forests for the sake of improving the climate in order to meet rising demand for biofuel have created another awkward situation that results from reckless expediency as a priority rather than responsible land use. The short term gain is that there is a monetization of an environmental trend, but in the long term it’s false advertisement overall. Indonesia now ranks 3rd rather than 21st among the world’s top carbon emitters as a result of its poor forest management.

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