Are Second Generation Biofuels a Curse or a Blessing?
C. Ruiz Marrero | Center for Intl. Policy Americas Program | April 2008 In the debate regarding climate change and the shortage of fossil fuels, biofuels were for a long time considered to be the ideal solution. However recently, they have increasingly come under fire. Critics denounce the fact that through production of ethanol and biodiesel, the foodstuffs which are urgently needed in poor countries end up in the gas tanks of Western cars. In addition, the production of biofuels requires using huge amounts of the cultivable land. Indeed, the entire corn and soy harvest of the USA would barely be sufficient to cover an eighth of domestic oil and 6% of diesel needs – and this is the case although the America’s share of the worldwide corn production, 44%, is larger than that of China, the EU, Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico all together. Even in Brazil, a country which attracts the highest investments in the field of biofuels worldwide, resistance to monoculture – a practice which is asso
