Share Bio-Fuel Scam Resurfaces As British Airways Use Food For Jet Fuel
Feb 15th, 2010 | By Keelan Balderson | Category: Environment & Climate, Featured Articles |
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The highly controversial use of bio-fuel, so much so that it is widely known as the biofuels scam, has resurfaced in Britain as British Airways inks a deal with the Solena Group to take waste food and convert it in to jet fuel.
As reported on Sky News, BA has teamed up with American bio-fuel firm Solena to build the plant, which will be selected from a short-list of four brownfield sites.
Work is scheduled to start within the next two years once planning consent is granted. The plant will create up to 1,200 jobs.
The crux of this decision falls on to climate change, a scientific theory that has been thrown in the air after a series of scandals, starting with “climate gate”, the leaked emails from East Anglia’s CRU.
BA’s Willie Walsh made the statement: “We are absolutely determined to reduce our impact on climate change and are proud to lead the way on aviation’s environmental initiatives.”
What BA seems to have failed to take “on board” is the fact that biofuels reduce the amount of land and food available to the millions of starving in the world. It’s literally using food as fuel. Food is supposed to be the fuel of humanity. And when we haven’t seen any real deaths from climate change, yet people are dieing every day from starvation, it begs the question, “have we gotten our priorities straight?”
Jean Ziegler, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food made the statement that, “to divert agricultural land from growing food to growing biolfuels is a crime against humanity”.[1]
The World Bank, who are aiming for a world carbon tax tried to suppress a report in July 2008, that revealed the drive for biofuels by American and European governments has pushed up food prices by a whopping 75%.
Those in the third world aren’t going to particularly care whether the west has gone “eco-friendly green”, while they are starving to death and cannot industrialize due to fear promulgated by the west of a few degrees rise in temperature.
One of many stories exposing the dark side of green energy was printed in the Guardian in 2008:
The EU is being urged to take action to stop a biofuel trading scam that exploits US agricultural subsidies and undermines the fight against global warming.
Up to 10% of biofuel exports from the US to Europe are believed to be part of the rogue scheme reaping big profits for agricultural trading firms.
The “splash and dash” scam involves shipping biodiesel from Europe to the US where a dash of fuel is added, allowing traders to claim 11p a litre of US subsidy for the entire cargo. It is then shipped back and sold below domestic prices, undercutting Europe’s biofuel industry.
Biofuels are plant-based oils from crops such as soy and corn. They are expensive to produce but have become relatively cheaper as the price of crude oil has risen to more than $100 a barrel. It is estimated that 10% of the 1m tonnes of biodiesel exported from the US to Europe is part of the splash and dash trade.
As a nation we need to ask ourselves, are we really that certain that climate change is a 100% what they say it is, and that biofuels is an efficient way of dealing with it? If there’s even the slightest inkling that this is a bad idea, it’s time to pull back and take a wider perspective.
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An old post but maybe someone will stumble upon it as I did! The point surely is that this uses waste food and waste biomass that otherwise goes to landfill. Whether you believe in climate change or not, the pollution caused by fossil oil drilling, tanker leakage etc is indisputable and has been catastrophic for wildlife. The toxic chemicals and carcinogens in leaked crude oil ends up in marine life and our food chain. Food prices rise because fossil fuels are required to manufacture chemical fertilizers (that leach into water courses), for food transport, tractors etc. Biofuels utlise energy from the sun via photosynthesis and are not inherently bad but, as with the wood industry, the key is to manage them sustainably and in an environmentally friendly way. This is already starting to happen. We have large areas of uncultivated agricultural land e.g in Ukraine but usually far removed from where the starving people are. We have had surplus food reserves at the same time as starving people for years and what is lacking is the political will to help the starving in countries that don’t have oil reserves. we need to break the oil industries strangle hold over fuel and indirectly, food prices.
actually, Fidel Castro is not at all a bad man. Cuba has one of the best government medical care in the world *`,
Fidel Castro still have some good legacies despite his not so good repuation.:~’
there are so many scams running on the internete so watch out`-’
Fidel Castro would always be an icon of history evethough he is against the U.S.~-:
You are quite right that bio fuels are not an ethical solution to the problems posed by Peak Oil,
The Cuban leader Fidel Castro was one of the first international figure criticising the biofuels policy.
In 2007, Castro said that the US drive to back crop use for fuels would raise food prices and cause more hunger in developing countries.
If you would like to learn more about the campaign against the Global development of Biofuels visit Biofuelwatch tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/biofuelwatch/
Bio Jet Fuel demand could lead to excellent promotion of agriculture in developing regions of the world for both food and fuel. The Solena process for producing advanced liquid fuels from biomass can have a great health and hygine impact while reducing the amount of mineral carbon used within the aviation industry.
Weather we like it or not there is going to have to be engineered bio solutions for energy needs in the developed and least developed regions of the world this has nothing to do with Climate Change; most to do with economic change. The mineral resources we depend upon to drive our economic wellbeing are depleted rapidly, alternatives are not so much a choice but a necessity for all.
Please explain that to the dead children of Africa. I’m sure they’ll love your ambiguous businessman rhetoric.