ETHANOL APALLS AUSTRALIA

Ethanol as a biofuel - immoral, costly and stupid
Ron Leng, 07 January 2009 (ScienceAlert)

“…biofuel development in nearly every country in the world has intensified in recent years with potentially devastating consequences for the sustainability of the planet - let alone our food supply…

“…the NSW State Government mandated the inclusion of ethanol in transport fuel in a program that will cost the Australian taxpayer $200 million per year. The result will be no net gain in transport fuel, a massive increase in pollution and a huge demand on our critically scarce water supplies…

“… the USA… mandated 15 billion gallons of ethanol for transportation purposes to be blended with petroleum by 2015 at a subsidy of some $US60 billion dollars each year…[with] a subsidy of 46 cents per gallon and an import tariff of 51 cents per gallon to protect US farmers against ethanol from Brazil."



“This will use up around 40 per cent of US maize production and will virtually dry up net grain exports, inevitably forcing up the price of cereal foods and food products dependent on grain such beef, poultry and pork worldwide.

“The main victims of this will be the poor…This means that to the subsidy the taxpayer pays to the biofuel industry must be added the great cost of increasing pensions, the dole and other social support measures so people can feed themselves…The development of biofuel from cereals is an extremely damaging development because it does not yield any more transport fuel then is used…

“The misuse of water for biofuel crops alone should disqualify this particular use, given the location of Australia’s wheat growing areas and the critical water balance in these areas… “