Is there enough food spare to be turned into fuel?
There’s more in the news at the moment about the short supply of wheat, after this year’s poor harvests across Europe, Australia and Canada. The Financial Times says that the world’s stock of wheat has fallen to its lowest level in 26 years.
Russia, the world’s fifth-largest exporter of the crop is apparently considering a ban on cereal exports in response to rising bread prices, while wheat prices have surged to a record-high on exchanges in Chicago and Paris.
All of which reminds us of BP’s recent announcement that it was planning a bioethanol plant in Hull which would run on wheat. We wondered at the time where the petrochemical giant would find the spare cereal for its venture, and this year’s harvest makes the question seem even more pertinent.
It’s possible to use a range of crops to make bioethanol, and we expect that BP’s factory will probably be designed with this flexibility in mind. Even so, the current issue with wheat provides more ammunition for biofuel’s critics, who wonder how much spare food capacity there is to be diverted into fuels.
IMAGE by Flickr users
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Originally posted 2007-09-03 20:24:00. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
