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Editorial–
SINCE George W. Bush pledged a major US
effort to develop biofuels in his State of the
Union address earlier this year, it seems the
whole world has joined the rush to convert
corn, sugar, cassava, sorghum and palm
oil – not to mention cooking fat and farm
waste – into the fuels of the future.
From China and Indonesia to India and
Cuba, everyone wants to turn crops into energy.
The European Union is even considering a
mandatory 10 per cent biofuel content at
every pump. The dream is to cut reliance on
fossil fuels while also reducing net greenhouse
gas emissions and even helping hard-pressed
farmers. And yet, there is a downside to all this.
With today’s biofuel technologies, filling
fuel tanks this way would require a huge
amount of land – enough to transform the
world’s agriculture (see page 36). The prospect
of growing corn to make ethanol is already
helping to push up global grain prices and
reduce emergency food stocks. Areas
earmarked for palm oil biodiesel production
in south-east Asia threaten to finish off the
region’s surviving rainforests.
What’s more, a rash of studies suggests that
the greenhouse gains from biofuels are far less
than commonly assumed. True, the carbon
emitted by burning biofuels is absorbed by
the next crop as it grows, but manufacturing
the fertilisers and pesticides needed to grow
most biofuels requires large amounts of
energy, as does turning the product into fuel.
The net emissions reductions compared with
conventional fossil fuels are often small – little
more than 10 per cent in the case of corn,
Bush’s biofuel of choice.
Does this mean that biofuels are a wasted
cause? Certainly not. The good news is that the
technology is only just getting started. The
trick will be to find ways to use plants that
grow well without a sea of chemicals, and to
process them more efficiently. We shouldn’t
dismiss all biofuel projects until each new
technology is up and running. Modest use of
biofuels today is perfectly acceptable and
passably green – for instance, there are few
downsides to converting used cooking oil into
biodiesel, recycling farm waste or growing
biofuels on disused land.
The key here is caution. Research into
advanced biofuels has been starved of funds
for decades. It is at a very early stage and may
one day deliver, so we must give it time to
mature. Meanwhile, we cannot grow our way
out of the twin crises of climate change and
energy security. There is a real danger of
creating a biofuels bubble that will burst,
leaving behind a pungent whiff of chip-fat oil,
burning rainforests and rotting fields. ●
THE idea that what we eat affects our health
is deeply ingrained in our collective
consciousness. Most people know that the
wages of dietary sin are a slew of diseases
including obesity, cancer, heart disease,
diabetes and osteoporosis. The World Heath
Organization, too, sees unhealthy eating
as a major problem. It estimates that
non-communicable diseases will account for
75 per cent of all deaths worldwide by 2020,
and considers an unhealthy diet to be one
of the main causes.
That’s all very well, but what actually
constitutes a healthy diet? Obesity-inducing
gluttony aside, it’s surprisingly hard to say.
When nutrition researchers have attempted
to find definitive links between diet and
health, all too often they have drawn a blank
(see page 42). There are many reasons for
this, such as flawed study designs and the
difficulty in getting research subjects to stick
to a particular regime. But there is another
possibility that researchers seem strangely
reluctant to consider: that there are no strong
links between diet and chronic diseases.
While that seems unlikely, it is a possibility
that nutrition researchers ought to entertain.
If it were true, it would be something worth
knowing. At the very least it would suggest
that the magnitude of dietary changes
required for a person to significantly reduce
their risk of disease are simply too great to
maintain in the long run. Then we could all
stop worrying about what we’re eating and
focus our energies on lifestyle changes that
have a genuine chance of succeeding –
stopping smoking, cutting down on alcohol
and taking more exercise. ●
Who says diet is the key to beating disease?
www.newscientist.com 23 September 2006 | NewScientist | 3
A paler shade of greenBiofuels may be less than perfect, but they’re still worth a shot
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