What is the advantage of using wheat for biofuels rather than other sources such as maize or sugar cane or sugar beet?
A. The advantage of using wheat is very clear. Europe is more suited to growing wheat than anywhere else. Europe consistently produces the world’s best wheat yields, and Europe has a regular wheat surplus, which is usually exported. Moreover, as explained above, biorefining wheat produces both food and fuel, so does not detract from the global food production capacity, and has such a good carbon footprint that CO2 is actually removed from the atmosphere, overall. Sugar cane requires a warm moist climate for growth. The major proportion of the world’s cane is grown in Brazil. Sugar cane can provide a very efficient environmentally friendly process for making bioethanol if produced from a modern large scale power integrated plant. However, there is a danger that sugar cane may be grown on high carbon stock ‘Cerrado’ grassland, or push soy production and ranching onto recently deforested land in which case its environmental credentials are obviously compromised. Additionally, sugar cane d
