Monday, June 30, 2008

Biofuels may prove more volatile than oil for transportation fuel

This story is the NY Times raises alarms that biofuels are subject to weather risks. As climate change is likely to increase weather swings and cause great damage to crops in the future, it seems that wholly embracing biofuels is not sound policy. Since the country is freaked out by the rising price of oil and there is no reasonable expectation of a major decline anytime soon (I'm doubtful of any type of speculative bubble in the oil market), switching to a fuel source that is more unpredicatable-at the cost of higehr food prices no less- may force uncomfortable and unpleasant choices in the future between mobility and hunger. It seems that biofuels will not solve many of the problems associated with transportation energy and will likely cause more severe and unexpected problems in the coming decades. Perhaps hydrogen is the way to go.

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