Transcontinental companies producing biofuels have persuaded the majority of the world public opinion and substantially all of the Western states that energy produced from plants was the miracle weapon against climate degradation.
But their argument is a lie. It ignores the methods and the environmental costs of biofuel production, which requires both water and energy. [emphasis added]
However, all over the planet, clean water is becoming increasingly scarce. One out of three persons is reduced to drinking polluted water. 9000 children under ten are dying every day from drinking water unfit for consumption.
...
According to the WHO, one third of the world population still lacks access to safe water at an affordable price, and half of the world population has no access to clean water. Approximately 285 million people live in sub-Saharan Africa without regular access to clean water[3].
And, of course, it is the poor who suffer most severely from the lack of water.
...
However, when you consider the water reserves that exist in the world, the production every year of tens of billions of gallons of biofuel is a real disaster.
4,000 liters of water are actually required to produce 1 liter of bioethanol.
...
Also, a detailed study by the OECD, the organization of the industrial states, with headquarters in Paris, gives us the results of its calculations on the amount of fossil energy needed to produce 1 liter of bioethanol. It is simply enormous. The New York Times comments soberly on the high amount of energy that is required to produce ethanol, "biofuels are increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere instead of contributing to its decline."
Barack Obama's obsession
Biofuel producers, by far the world's most powerful multinational corporations, have their headquarters in the U.S.
Each year they receive billions of dollars of government aid. In the words of Barack Obama in his State of the Union Address in 2011: for the United States, the bioethanol and biodiesel program is "a national cause," a cause of national security.
In 2011, subsidized by $ 6 billion of public funds, U.S. trusts will burn 38.3 % of the national corn
harvest, against 30.7 % in 2008. And since 2008, corn prices on the world
market have increased by 48%.
The
United States is by far the most dynamic industrial power and also the top
producer in the world. Despite a relatively low number of inhabitants -- 300
million, compared with 1.3 billion and more in China and India -- the United
States produces just over 25% of all industrial goods manufactured in one year
on the planet.
The raw material of this impressive machine is oil.
The U.S. on a daily average burns 20 million barrels, or about a quarter of the
world production. 61% of this volume -- slightly more than 12 million barrels
per day -- are imported.[4]
For the U.S. president, this dependence from abroad is obviously a concern. And
most worrying is the fact that most of this imported oil comes from regions
where political instability is endemic or Americans are not well seen -- in
short, where production and export to the United States are not guaranteed.
...
George
W. Bush was the initiator of the biofuel program. In January 2007, he set the
goal to be reached: in the next ten years, the U.S. had to reduce by 20% its
consumption of fossil fuels and multiply by seven the production of biofuels.
Burning millions of tons of food on a
planet where every five seconds a child under ten dies of hunger is obviously scandalous.
(emphasis added)
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