No doubt that the use of carbon (fossil) fuel should be diminished if not fully controlled in the future. The world is now in a race to find the best alternative for it. Here, in our country, there are really so many we can choose from or we can all use; e.g. solar energy, wind power, hydroelectric power, bio-gas, etc. The recent one and seemingly very popular is bio-fuel. It makes use of food products like soybean and corn to produce an alternative fuel.
But it is not without a "catch". While it is true that we will be able to produce a good quality and eco-friendly fuel, there are questionable consequences to it. One is that it will need great amounts of biofuel just to produce a few liters of biofuel. Because we need a great amount of raw materials, we need more land allotted for it. There will come a time when food would be given up for fuel!
Another is the use of more land for only one purpose. Include here the use of fertilizers and other chemicals that would destroy the land. The land would really be subjected to too much processes and may be abused to inutility!
Our country had just recently made an agreement with China (and God knows to who else?) allowing them to use some of our lands for bio fuel production. We just hope that extreme precautions and care are placed so that we will not be left holding the bag in the end.
Granted that we will be able to produce much bio fuel from food products. Are the fuels we will be able to produce much much greater than the energy we had used to produce them? Was this studied? What were the results?
In the end, the question is: is it worth it? My certain answer is, "No!"
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