SPAIN: Biofuels - Good for Business, Bad for the Poor, Say Activists

SPAIN: Biofuels - Good for Business, Bad for the Poor, Say Activists

Alicia Fraerman

MADRID, Nov 9 (IPS) - Making fuels from plants is strongly supported by the business community in Spain, but equally strongly criticised by environmental organisations because of its negative impact on food production.
Bill Glover, environmental performance director for U.S. aircraft maker Boeing, recently said in Madrid that within five or 10 years, the use of biofuels in commercial aviation will be feasible, and will help to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions caused by air transport by 50 percent.

He added that air transport is responsible for 1.5 percent of European Union CO2 emissions, according to statistics from 2006, while land transport accounts for 52.8 percent.

This is because a car carrying two people uses on average six litres of fuel per 100 kilometres, while an aeroplane filled to 80 percent capacity does not consume as much per passenger, he said.

The importance attached to biofuels in Spain is borne out by the Spanish transnational corporation Abengoa Bioenergy, which has just opened a 35 million dollar pilot plant for biofuels production in the midwestern U.S. state of Nebraska.

The plant is designed to produce 50 million litres of bioethanol (fuel alcohol to substitute for gasoline) a year, using waste biomass unsuited for use as food, according to a company spokesman.

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