[Sorry for those who are receiving this twice - I forgot to send it
as a special notice before. Almuth]

Please tell the EU: Don't sacrifice our birds and insects for
agrofuel expansion!

Europe's biodiversity is in steep decline. Common farmbirds have
declined by almost 50% since 1980, largely due to intensive
agriculture and 45% of our butterflies are at risk of extinction.
Bee species have declined by 80% in large parts of the UK and the
Netherlands, threatening the future of pollination and thus of much
of our food supply. Set-asides are now a last refuge, allowing
many of our common birds, insects and also hares to survive. The
European Commissioner for Agriculture plan to scrap next year's set-
aside target without doing any environmental impact assessment or
review, and without any replacement. If this plan is agreed the
millions of our farm birds could face starvation next spring. The
plan is in response to rising food prices - large driven by the
expanding agrofuel industry. The agrofuel lobby have long lobbied
for the abolition of set asides, to create for more intensive
monocultures for 'energy crops'. Agrofuels are already devastating
communities, biodiversity, rainforests and food supplies in many
parts of the global South - they are now threatening our wildlife,
too. Please write to European politicians today, ask them not to
scrap set-aside targets without any replacement, and to agree to a
moratorium on EU biofuel targets. Please go to
http://www.regenwald.org/international/englisch/

and ask those responsible for the project to drop these plans.

After reading the hype below, check into this cautionary tale of GM
microbes. Denny
<http://lists.ifas.ufl.edu/cgi-bin/wa.exe?A2=ind0507&L=sanet-mg&P=7668>http://lists.ifas.ufl.edu/cgi-bin/wa.exe?A2=ind0507&L=sanet-mg&P=7668

<http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/7/30/2124/78022?source=daily>http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/7/30/2124/78022?source=daily

<http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/7/30/2124/78022>LS9 promises
'renewable petroleum'

Posted by <http://gristmill.grist.org/user/David%20Roberts>David
Roberts at 2:20 AM on 30 Jul 2007

Read more about: <http://www.grist.org/topic/energy>energy |
<http://www.grist.org/topic/biofuels>biofuels |
<http://www.grist.org/topic/GMOs>GMOs |
<http://www.grist.org/topic/innovation>innovation
<http://www.stumbleupon.com/submit?url=http%3A%2F%2Fgristmill.grist.org%2Fstory%2F2007%2F7%2F30%2F2124%2F78022&title=LS9%20promises%20%27renewable%20petroleum%27>

Picture a liquid fuel that is derived from the same feedstocks as
cellulosic ethanol (switchgrass, sugar cane, corn stover) but
contains 50% more energetic content and is made via a process that
uses 65% less energy.
Unlike cellulosic ethanol, this fuel can be distributed via existing
oil pipelines rather than gas-hogging trucks and trains, dispensed
through existing gas stations rather than specialized pumps, and used
in existing engines rather than modified "flex-fuel" engines.
In short, it is a biofuel that can be substituted directly and
immediately for gas or diesel, on a gallon-for-gallon basis.
Sounds pretty good, eh? Too good to be true?
An outfit called <http://ls9.com/> LS9 says it can create such a
fuel, and that it can do so at a cost competitive with gasoline,
without government subsidies. The company, which was founded in 2005,
is making a few key announcements this morning.
First, it will be releasing, at least in schematic form, the details
of the science it's using. Stephen del Cardayre, VP of Research &
Development, will be at the annual meeting of the
<http://www.simhq.org/>Society for Industrial Microbiology to present
some of the technical details (on those, see below).
Second, it's announcing <http://ls9.com/pr073007.htm>the hiring of
Robert Walsh as its new president. Walsh is an old-school oil guy --
26 years at Royal Dutch Shell, where most recently he managed Shell
Europe Oil Products, to the tune of some $30 billion in revenue. Not
your starry eyed green idealist. Walsh says:

After years of leadership roles in the traditional petroleum industry
and responsibility over all aspects of the hydrocarbon supply chain,
I can see clearly how LS9's products will fit into existing
infrastructure and deliver significant value to partners and
consumers compared with other biofuel alternatives. LS9 has the
opportunity to fundamentally change the transportation fuel equation,
which makes me incredibly excited to join this talented team.

LS9 plans to build a manufacturing facility in 2008 and have products
available at commercial scale within 3-5 years.
All of which is to say: these are not idle claims.

What are these fuels, and how will LS9 make them?
The process is the same as
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellulosic_ethanol#Production_methods>making
cellulosic ethanol insofar as cellulosic feedstocks are converted
into fermentable sugars, and those sugars are placed in a
fermentation vat. The difference comes in the microbes doing the
fermenting. With ethanol, it's generally some form of yeast. The
researchers at LS9 have engineered their own microbes, lifting genes
from other microbes and recombining them into an organism that does
just what they want. In this way they can precisely tweak the
characteristics of the resulting fuel.
Yeast fermentation produces ethanol, which mixes with water and
subsequently has to be extracted via distillation. LS9's microbes
produce -- via fatty acid metabolism, in a process I won't claim to
understand -- hydrocarbons (the building blocks of petroleum). These
hydrocarbons are immiscible, i.e., they don't mix with water.
Instead, they float to the top of the vat, where they can essentially
be skimmed off. That allows LS9 to skip the distillation process,
which saves a whole boatload of energy. (That's where most of the
claimed 65% energy savings comes from.)

LS9 claims that by tweaking its microbes it can produce "designer
biofuels" that are, in the lingo, "fit for purpose." That is to say,
they can be matched precisely to the required use. One product is
"bio-crude," which can substitute directly for crude oil -- it can be
refined into gas or used to make all the many petroleum products we
know and love, like plastics, fertilizers, etc. Other products can go
directly into tanks, including bio-equivalents to gasoline, diesel,
and even jet fuel.
Chemically speaking, hydrocarbons are hydrocarbons -- LS9's products
are essentially identical to their fossil-based counterparts. They
can do whatever oil products can do, without the need for special
equipment.

Can you be more concise?
Sure. LS9 has genetically engineered microbes that will eat sugar and crap oil.

What are we greens to make of this?
As far as greenhouse-gas emissions, the news is mixed. In terms of
pure combustion -- i.e., what comes out of the tailpipe -- LS9's
fuels are about the same as gasoline. (By comparison, E85 -- 15% gas,
85% ethanol -- is about an 80% emissions reduction from gasoline.)
However, the company claims that on a lifecycle basis, its products
represent a reduction in GHG emission from both gas and ethanol.
Why? Relative to gas, LS9's products don't require drilling for oil.
They don't release any previously buried carbon into the atmosphere.
Instead, the feedstock plants absorb CO2; it's released when the
fuels are burned; it's reabsorbed by the plants; released again; etc.
In other words, it's a closed loop, recycling CO2 already in the
atmosphere.
Relative to ethanol, LS9's products don't require a huge new
distribution infrastructure. Ethanol, if and when it scales up, will
be distributed by lots and lots of trucks and trains, which will be
burning lots of gas and emitting lots of CO2. LS9's products can be
distributed via existing oil infrastructure. That saves gas.
Also, LS9's products have roughly double the energetic content of
cellulosic ethanol, which means they require half as much feedstock
for the same amount of oomph. That reduces the amount of feedstock
crops necessary, thus reducing industrial agriculture and all its
attendant ills.
Another advantage over cellulosic ethanol is that LS9's process can
create a crude oil substitute that can be used to make
petroleum-based products. That means we could get the oil out of
those products immediately, without having to reconfigure the
production process to make use of carbohydrate-based materials.
Incidentally, LS9 says that while its fuel will be roughly equivalent
to gas in terms of nitrogen oxide (NOx), it will have only trace
amounts of sulfur, so no SOx. It will also have much less benzene and
other toxic compounds found in gas.
I know there are greens who feel creepy about genetic engineering,
and they probably won't like the fact that LS9 is trying to patent a
life form. But I don't really share those concerns, so I'll just skip
them.

Can you be more concise?
Sure. "Renewable petroleum" -- yes, that's what they call it --
strikes me as vastly preferable to liquid coal and corn ethanol,
substantially preferable to cellulosic ethanol, and inferior to a
transformed society based on dense cities, public transit, and
electrified transportation using renewable sources.

Conclude already.
We have an enormous infrastructure built up around liquid fuels, so
even if you want to eventually get rid of them -- and I do -- you
need ways to reduce oil use and GHG emissions while you're working
toward that goal. LS9's biofuels can be plugged into our oil
infrastructure immediately and could, if widely adopted, radically
reduce the use of imported oil.

All of this assumes, of course, that LS9 can make good on its claims.
That's still a huge assumption.
We'll find out soon enough.
(Thanks to Greg Pal at LS9 for talking me through the details.)
For story: <http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/7/30/2124/78022>LS9
promises 'renewable petroleum'
32 Comments |
<http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/7/30/2124/78022?source=daily#comment_form>Post
a Comment

--
Orin Langelle
Co-Director/Global Justice Ecology Project
P.O. Box 412
Hinesburg, VT 05461 U.S.
+1.802.482.2689 ph/fax
+1.802.578.6980 mobile
mailto:langelle@globaljusticeecology.org
http://www.globaljusticeecology.org

The STOP Genetically Engineered Trees Campaign is a Program of Global
Justice Ecology Project http://www.stopgetrees.org

Global Justice Ecology Project is the North American Focal Point for
Global Forest Coalition http://www.globalforestcoalition.org

Global Justice Ecology Project Mission Statement: Building local,
national and international alliances with action to address the root
causes of social injustice, economic domination and environmental
destruction.

George Soros vs. the planet
Posted by Glenn Hurowitz at 8:08 AM on 02 Aug 2007
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/8/1/131233/8756

Sabrina Valle of the Washington Post is reporting that Soros is one of the biggest investors in growing sugarcane ethanol in the Brazilian cerrado, "a vast plateau where temperatures range from freezing to steaming hot and bushes and grasslands alternate with forests and the richest variety of flora of all the world's savannas."

=====

http://www.checkbiotech.org/green_News_Biofuels.aspx?
Name=biofuels&infoId=15243

August 2, 2007

HAMBURG - Rising biofuels production will keep grain and oilseed
prices high in the coming year, German grain trading house Toepfer
International, a unit of U.S. agribusiness Archer Daniels Midland
Co. said.

"As simultaneously demand for food and animal feed continues to
rise, above all in rapidly developing countries including China and
India, all market participants, especially processing companies,
must prepare themselves for a long phase of relatively high prices
for agricultural commodities," Toepfer said in a statement on its
annual results.

Higher prices were needed to stimulate farmers to raise global grain
and oilseeds production and to start cultivation on unused land, it
said.

"A relatively quick end to the current high prices can only be
achieved through record harvests in 2008," it said.

"Along with continued strong demand for human and animal foods, ever
more grain and vegetable oils are flowing into production of
bioethanol and biodiesel," it said.

"In the 2005/06 grain season, about 72 million tonnes of grain were
used worldwide for ethanol production, a year previously this was
only 56 million tonnes and in 2000/01 only around 30 million tonnes."

"In 2006, around 5.5 million tonnes of vegetable oil was used for
production of biodiesel in comparison to 3 million tonnes a year
previously and only 700,000 tonnes in 2000."

"Until now biofuels were previously largely produced in the U.S. and
Brazil -- bioethanol from corn or sugar beet -- and in the European
Union -- biodiesel from rapseeed -- now ever more countries are
following their example and are investing in production of biofuels."

"Sales of biofuels are being promoted in a targeted way using tax
incentives or compulsory blending."
"In turn, the growth in demand for agricultural commodities for
biofuel production will continue in coming years."

"According to our estimates, in 2007 for the first time more than
100 million tonnes of grain will be processed into ethanol.
Processing of vegetable oils into biodiesel could rise to 8 million
tonnes."

Rising biofuel production would also lead to medium-term changes in
global trading patterns, it said.

"This is largely because the traditional exporting countries for
agricultural products will increasingly produce biofuels which will
reduce their export surpluses," it said. "This will open new
marketing opportunities for countries such as Ukraine, Kazakhstan,
Russia and also Bulgaria and Romania to export their increasing
surpluses."

Toepfer said it expected to profit from its previous decision to
expand in these countries.

Toepfer said it raised turnover in its 2005/06 financial year by 1
percent on the year to 5.8 billion euros. The company traditionally
does not release earnings figures.

Higher sales of animal feed, oilseeds and vegetable oils were
largely behind a 3 percent increase in traded volumes on the year to
39.7 million tonnes.
© Reuters 2007

http://www.euractiv.com/en/transport/uk-launches-co2-car-ranking-website/art
icle-165985

UK launches CO2 car-ranking website[de
<http://www.euractiv.com/de/verkehr/webseite-ranking-co2-emissionen-autos/ar
ticle-165994> ]

Published: Wednesday 1 August 2007

The British government has set up a website designed to lure consumers
towards buying the greenest cars available as the EU prepares to set binding
caps on the amount of CO2 that new vehicles can emit.

Related:

ListLinksDossier: Cars
<http://www.euractiv.com/en/transport/cars-co2/article-162412> & CO2

ListNews: Europeans
<http://www.euractiv.com/en/transport/europeans-reluctant-give-cars-despite-
environmental-concerns/article-165906> reluctant to give up cars despite
environmental concerns

Brief News:

The ''Best <http://www.dft.gov.uk/ActOnCO2/?q=best_on_co2_rankings> on
CO2external '' website, launched by the UK's Department for Transport on 31
July, aims to direct consumers to the cleanest car model within the vehicle
category that they prefer, ranging from the ''super-mini'' and family car
categories to executive, 4x4, luxury and performance cars.

The government hopes that 4x4 fans that check out the site may then decide
to buy a Hyundai Santa Fe, which emits 191g/km, rather than a Toyota Land
Cruiser, which will emit 238g/km, or that families will choose a Citoren C5
or a Peugeot 407, both emitting 140g/km, over a Volkswagen Passat Saloon,
which emits 153 g/km.

Transport Minister Jim Fitzpatrick said: "By choosing the car with the most
fuel efficient engine in its class, drivers could reduce their engine CO2
emissions by 24% and potentially save a quarter on fuel costs. So the
message is simple - the car you choose can help reduce your impact on the
environment, and help save money."

Raising consumers' awareness about the impact their choice of car can have
on the environment and on their fuel consumption is seen as a necessity if
the EU is to go ahead with plans to reduce average fleet emissions to under
120 grams per kilometre by 2012.

Currently, drivers remain attached to certain types of car, viewed as more
spacious, safer, more powerful or more luxurious, regardless of the quantity
of CO2 emissions they spew out or how much fuel they guzzle.

The EU still needs to decide how it will enforce its 120g/km target for cars
sold in Europe, with some members of Parliament calling on an outright ban
on cars continuing to emit more than 240g/km by 2015 (EurActiv 26/06/07
<http://www.euractiv.com/en/transport/parliament-weigh-bigger-co2-cuts-carma
kers/article-164956> ).

MEPs and member states will examine the issue later this year and the
Commission is expected to come up with detailed legislation at the beginning
of next year.

Links

EU official documents

* Commission: Reducing CO2
<http://www.ec.europa.eu/environment/co2/co2_home.htm> emissions from
light-duty vehiclesexternal

Governments

* UK Government (press release): Most carbon-friendly car
<http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Nl1/Newsroom/DG_069559> rankings go
liveexternal (31 July 2007)
* UK Department for Transport: ACT ON CO2. You can help
<http://www.dft.gov.uk/ActOnCO2/> external
* UK Department for Transport: Best on CO2 rankings
<http://www.dft.gov.uk/ActOnCO2/?q=best_on_co2_rankings> external

Press articles

* Reuters: CO2 car rankings
<http://uk.reuters.com/article/motoringNews/idUKNOA12225820070731> site
launchedexternal
* The Register: UK gov
<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/31/gov_prius_ass_whup/> offers car
CO2 rankings by classexternal

News

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Letters To The Editor

Speed limit key to CO2 reduction?
<http://www.euractiv.com/en/transport/speed-limit-key-co2-reduction/article-
165772>

Copyright : euractiv.com

Dear all,

Plenty of mistakes in this article. I'm sending
this to [biofuelwatch] Digest due to the mention
of biofuels, ethanol, etc.

FORTUNE senior writer, Marc Gunther, wrote this
article. It would be great if people could
respond to his blog
<http://www.marcgunther.com/?p=240>http://www.marcgunther.com/?p=240
with comments. We, "er, tree-huggers" from
"Global Justice Ecology program" (in actuality,
Global Justice Ecology Project) will respond also
and Anne Petermann, who Marc interviewed for at
least 20 minutes is responding personally to his
email address.

Ciao,

Orin Langelle

http://money.cnn.com/2007/07/31/technology/pluggedin_gunther_supertrees.fortune/index.htm?source=yahoo_quote

Super trees : The latest in genetic engineering

A South Carolina biotech firm re-engineers trees
to make them grow faster and cleaner, says
Fortune's Marc Gunther.

By mailto:mgunther@fortunemail.com Marc Gunther, Fortune senior writer
August 1 2007: 9:48 AM EDT

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- In 1913, the New Jersey
poet and critic Joyce Kilmer wrote "Trees," a
poem which concludes with this simple rhyme:

"Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree."

It may be that only God can make a tree. But only
man, and modern biotechnology, can make super
trees - trees that have been genetically
engineered to grow faster, produce more wood on
less land, thrive in unfamiliar climates and be
processed more easily into wood or paper once
they are cut down.

Super trees are the business of ArborGen
http://www.arborgen.com/ , a South Carolina
company that says improving the genetic makeup of
purpose-grown trees - that is, trees grown for
paper, wood or biofuels - will help conserve
"native forests in all their diversity and
complexity for future generations."

Yes, ArborGen, like so many companies today, is
painting itself green - although it has run into
a buzzsaw of criticism from the likes of the
Sierra Club.

"Genetically engineered trees pose unpredictable
and unnecessary threats to the environment,
biodiversity and human health," says the Stop GE
Trees Campaign http://www.stopgetrees.org/ , an
alliance of environmental groups which is based
in the village of Hinesburg, Vermont.

We'll hear from the, er, tree-huggers, in a
minute but first a bit about ArborGen. Formed in
2000, ArborGen is a joint venture of three forest
products companies, International Paper
http://money.cnn.com/quote/quote.html?symb=IP&source=story_quote_link
, MeadWestvaco
http://money.cnn.com/quote/quote.html?symb=MWV&source=story_quote_link
, and New Zealand-based Rubicon.

Attack of the mutant rice
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/07/09/100122123/index.htm

Last year, the company began selling its first
commercial product, Loblolly pine seedlings that
have been bred to produce 30 to 40 percent more
lumber than the native, unimproved pine. They are
not genetically engineered but produced through
natural selection and then cloned. Top-performing
trees, selected for straightness, fewer branches
or knots or faster growth are mass produced into
seedlings for customers.

ArborGen is also working on a freeze-tolerant
Eucalyptus, a reduced-lignin Eucalyptus and
faster-growing Aspen. Reducing lignin, a chemical
compound which is removed from pulp before it is
made into paper, means using fewer chemicals and
less energy during processing.

All this, says ArborGen CEO Barbara Wells, means
that land can be used more efficiently, saving
native forests. "Our purpose is more wood, less
land," says Wells, who has a PhD in agronomy and
18 years of experience at Monsanto, a leading
biotech company.

The federal government's push for biofuels is a
boost to Arborgen. The freeze-tolerant,
fast-growing Eucalyptus, for example, could
become a source for the production of ethanol,
which burns cleaner than gasoline and reduces the
U.S.'s dependence on foreign oil. Some of the
trees grow 20-25 feet per year, and produce high
quality fiber. "It is truly a biomass machine,"
Wells says.

ArborGen also belongs to a group of researchers,
companies and universities that received a $125
million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy
for a bioenergy research center at Oak Ridge
National Laboratory in Tennessee, with the goal
of developing new ways to produce biofuels.

Other companies and scientists also want to
improve trees. After a virus wiped out a wide
swath of Hawaii's papaya industry in the 1990s,
trees engineered to resist the virus helped
restore the business. Synthetic Genomics, a
Maryland firm founded by J. Craig Venter (of
human genome project fame), recently announced a
deal with a Malaysian palm oil plantation company
to analyze the genome of the palm tree that
produces oil. Forest scientists at Oregon State
University have used genetic engineering to
manipulate the height of poplar trees, opening
the door to new products for the nursery industry.

Environmental groups, including the Sierra Club,
the Rainforest Action Network and Forest Ethics,
don't like any of this. They argue, among other
things, that pollen from the genetically modified
trees could escape into the wild and wreak havoc
with forest ecosystems.

"We barely understand how forest ecosystems work,
anyway," says Anne Petermann of Stop GE Trees and
the Global Justice Ecology program. "When you
throw a wildcard in there, like a genetically
engineered tree, who knows how far those impacts
are going to ripple?"

She also says that tree plantations, whether
engineered or not, usually displace agricultural
land, native forests or grasslands, all of which
are better for the earth and for local
communities.

So far, the federal government has ignored the
critics and granted ArborGen permission to do
more than 100 field trials of genetically
engineered - that is, new and improved - trees.

_____________________________________
Orin Langelle
Co-Director/Global Justice Ecology Project
P.O. Box 412
Hinesburg, VT 05461 U.S.
+1.802.482.2689 ph/fax
+1.802.578.6980 mobile
mailto:langelle@globaljusticeecology.org
http://www.globaljusticeecology.org

The STOP Genetically Engineered Trees Campaign is
a Program of Global Justice Ecology Project
http://www.stopgetrees.org

Global Justice Ecology Project is the North
American Focal Point for Global Forest Coalition
http://www.globalforestcoalition.org

Global Justice Ecology Project Mission
Statement:Ý Building local, national and
international alliances with action to address
the root causes of social injustice, economic
domination and environmental destruction.
--
Orin Langelle
Co-Director/Global Justice Ecology Project
P.O. Box 412
Hinesburg, VT 05461 U.S.
+1.802.482.2689 ph/fax
+1.802.578.6980 mobile
mailto:langelle@globaljusticeecology.org
http://www.globaljusticeecology.org

The STOP Genetically Engineered Trees Campaign is
a Program of Global Justice Ecology Project
http://www.stopgetrees.org

Global Justice Ecology Project is the North
American Focal Point for Global Forest Coalition
http://www.globalforestcoalition.org

Global Justice Ecology Project Mission Statement:
Building local, national and international
alliances with action to address the root causes
of social injustice, economic domination and
environmental destruction.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10455317

Car firms warn of biofuel fire risk

Page 1 of 2 View
<http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10455317&pnum=0
> as a single page 5:00AM Thursday August 02, 2007
By Angela Gregory <http://www.nzherald.co.nz/author/index.cfm?a_id=61>

Car makers are warning that an environmentally friendly "biofuel" launched
by Prime Minister Helen Clark yesterday could seriously damage up to a
million Japanese imported vehicles.

It could even cause some cars to catch fire, they say.

The Force 10 ethanol blend put on sale by Gull Petroleum yesterday is the
first product to appear under a Government climate change policy that will
require oil companies to ensure 3.4 per cent of their sales are biofuels by
the year 2012.

More at :

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10455317

The Overseas Development Institute is pleased to announce the availability
of two new publications discussing issues related to climate change.

Can
<http://www.odi.org.uk/fpeg/publications/policybriefs/forestrybriefings/0707
_forestrybriefing13_carbonoffsets.pdf> standards for voluntary carbon
offsets ensure development benefits?
(http://www.odi.org.uk/fpeg/publications/policybriefs/forestrybriefings/0707
_forestrybriefing13_carbonoffsets.pdf)

ODI Forestry Briefing 13
Increasing concerns about climate change are fuelling growth in the market
for carbon offsets. Carbon offsets are purchased by individuals and
organisations from schemes that claim to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG)
concentrations in the atmosphere. This paper explores how emerging standards
covering the voluntary carbon markets can address multiple aims of carbon
offsetting and sustainable development and how they might be best designed
to bring benefits for developing countries.
Leo Peskett <http://www.odi.org.uk/rpgg/people/leo_peskett.html> , Cecilia
<http://www.odi.org.uk/fpeg/staff/cecilia_luttrell/index.html> Luttrell and
Mari Iwata
July 2007

Biofuels, Agriculture and Poverty <http://www.odi.org.uk/nrp/NRP107.pdf>
Reduction (http://www.odi.org.uk/nrp/NRP107.pdf)
ODI Natural Resource Perspective 107

The development of biofuels has generated vigorous debate on economic and
environmental grounds. Our attention here is on its potential impacts on
poverty reduction. The potential is large, whether through employment, wider
growth multipliers and energy price effects. But it is also fragile: it will
be reduced where feedstock production tends to be large scale, or causes
pressure on land access, and its success can be undermined by many of the
same policy, regulatory or investment shortcomings as impede agriculture.
Whilst some of the factors facilitating, and impacts of, biofuels can be
tracked at global level, its distributional impacts are complex, and point
to the need for country-by-country analysis of potential poverty impacts.

Leo <http://www.odi.org.uk/rpgg/people/leo_peskett.html> Peskett, Rachel
<http://www.odi.org.uk/plag/TEAM/rachelslater.html> Slater, Chris Stevens
and Annie Dufey

June 2007

For more information on ODI's work on climate change, please visit:

http://www.odi.org.uk/climatechange/

Many thanks,

Nick Scott

Communications Officer, Rural Policy and Governance Group

Overseas Development Institute

111, Westminster Bridge Road

London, SE1 7JD

Tel: +44 (0)20 7922 0436

Fax: +44 (0)20 7922 0399

Email: <mailto:n.scott@odi.org.uk> n.scott@odi.org.uk

Website: <http://www.odi.org.uk/> www.odi.org.uk

ODI - Public Affairs Think Tank of the Year 2007

<http://www.odi.org.uk/news_releases/2007/july06.html>
http://www.odi.org.uk/news_releases/2007/july06.html

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