In particular it has become a pejorative term used by NGOs and environmental lobbyists to beat green technology developers with. Sadly it reduces what should be a reasonable, and important, conversation about the pros and cons of technology to the yah boo sucks level of playground rhetoric.

Take today’s (1st September) press release form Friends of the Earth; Geoengineering is no silver bullet says the headline. The release continues:

Commenting on a report published today by the Royal Society, looking into the feasibility and potential dangers of tackling climate change with geoengineering, Friends of the Earth’s Head of Climate Change Mike Childs said:

Geoengineering is no silver bullet – it won’t solve climate change. The different options will take time to develop, risks need to be properly researched, and if we use geoengineering at all it must be in addition to making deep cuts in the amount of carbon dioxide we produce in the first place.”

Now as far as I can see the Royal Society’s report on Geoengineering made no claim to be a  silver bullet. It did, however, put forward some interesting technological solutions that could be looked at to mitigate some of problems we are facing. The technology was interesting and innovative and to simply ignore it would be crass. But that is exactly what FoE seems to be suggesting.

The release continued with the rather emotive; “We haven’t got time to play Russian roulette with the future of the planet.” Silver bullets and a bit of fear in the form of Russian roulette and the future of the world are heady stuff as far as headlines in the tabloids are concerned but they add little to the real debate.

However, undeterred and completely shamlessly Mr Childs then whips out his own quick fix solution; “Investing in green industries will slash carbon emissions, create hundreds of thousands of jobs, and lead us out of recession towards a clean, stable and prosperous global economy”, said Childs in the release.

Missing the irony completely Childs has just pomised a straightforward and simple fix “Investing in green industries” that will solve all the problems “slash carbon emissions, create hundreds of thousands of jobs, and lead us out of recession towards a clean, stable and prosperous global economy” all in one fell swoop. A true silver bullet.

Maybe we now know the identity of that masked man…

*For those of you too young to remember the Lone Ranger was a character in a western series which ran on radio and television from the early 1930s through to the mid 50s. He and his loyal sidekick Tonto fought injustice and wrong in the wild west.

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Well today I was stung into action. Sadly, perhaps, the topic is not one of great moment. However, to use that quaint American phrase “it really grinds my gears”.

In this case it was the opening puffery in the lastest announcement from BP. The story itself is quite interesting. BP has set up an agreement with Martek Biosciences to work on the production of microbial oils for biofuels applications. Fine. Give me the who, why, where, and when and move on.

But then the PR department got involved. The partnership it smoothly assured us with the following piece of deathless prose;

combines a broad technology platform and operational capabilities to advance the development of a step-change technology for the conversion of sugars into biodiesel.

Quite frankly all I can say to that is what a load of bollocks!

Anyone with other pieces of PR speak from the biofuels PR industry is welcome to submit them and I will be happy to start a Hall of Shame on this site.

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In what was a measured, knowledgable and, clearly, hearfelt speech Bob Geldof gave all of us sitting in Auditorium 2000, at the Brussels Expo Centre much to think about for the following two days. It was truly a keynote speech.

It had been my intention to report on the speech directly, highlighting some of the very valid points he raised, however, I can’t. Why? Because Bob’s people, Kruger Crowne UK Ltd, won’t release a copy of his speech. Usually when politicians, business leaders and the like, really serious players, want to make a point they deliver a speech but they also release a printed copy which allows journalists to listen carefully to the speech, to get the whole message and not get bogged down in note taking.

The printed version together with brief notes made during the delivery allow a journalist to highlight points, but also give accurate quotes that mean exactly what the speaker meant them to. Using the written speech, there is no worry about the accuracy of a shorthand note. You know what was meant to be said and a true impression of the speech can be passed on to the reader. It is not the same as a set piece interview, where notes are verything, and I believe all benefit from the increased accuracy.

Not so Mark Cowne, ceo of Kruger Crowne UK Ltd, who seems intent on making it as difficult as possible for the press to report on his client’s speech. In reply to my request for a copy of Bob Geldof’s speech I got a short email back which said; “Most regretably we are unable to provide copies of our clients [sic] speeches post event.” Why? He didn’t choose to explain.

So that’s it. A serious, decent and well-informed opinion, which, quite resonably, should be heard by a wider audience, effectively silenced by an agency which apparently is there to promote the speaker. Sadly the trappings of celebrity can often get in the way of taking the message to the widest audience.

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Well I was wrong. As it was so long ago I was tempted to ignore how badly my prediction had been, but really I thought it was simply too important to ignore.

The topic of biofuels has hardly come up at all during the campaign. In fact the topic is of apparently so little importance that I actually wrote to both campaigns three weeks ago just to see if they had a position on biofuels. I contacted the press office of the candidates and asked for a statement on their stance on the future of biofuels.

The outcome of the emails is that to date I have been swamped by begging messages from the Obama campaign, asking for money, and I have heard absolutely nothing from the McCain camp.

Overall while Obama was initially seen to be keen on biofuels (see his myspace blog of 2006), more recently a BBC news piece highlighted a noticeable change in his approach. Turning to the McCain camp it has, by and large, been anti, but has kept the fact low profile as it might impact on his votes in the midwest corn belt which has been doing pretty well out of the recent ethanol push from the US government. However, it’s worth looking at a piece published in Ethanol Producer Magazine in August this year, which suggests that McCain’s energy plan doesn’t include biofuels (read the article) at all.

There really is little more to add. If you thought that biofuels really mattered to the politicians think again. They were sexy when they thought there might be a vote in them. Once it got complicated it was easier just to ignore them.

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The pundits at the conference certainly aren’t the only one’s who are including substantial African figures in their projections. A quick call round the market seem to back up the general feeling that it is reasonable to include Africa’s vast feedstock potential in the forecasts.

The optimism was further supported today (4th July) in a press release from Frost & Sullivan which hit my inbox. In the release a Frost & Sullivan research analyst, Jhill Johns, suggested that;

As the biofuels debate has intensified, Africa has however also become the focus of many industrialised nations as a potential solution. This is because it has extensive amounts of underutilised land available and cheap labour for agricultural crop production.

“Southern African countries, including Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe have an estimated 137.3 million hectares of potential arable land available between them,” notes Johns. “Of this, only 17.1 per cent is presently cultivated.”

Frost & Sullivan believes there is enough land available, even in South Africa, to accommodate crop production for both fuel and food. There is potentially an additional 28 million hectares of arable land in South Africa alone that is not currently being cultivated.

So to leverage all this potential what is required? Well according to Frost and Sullivan it’s significant investment.

There is certainly an opportunity for African countries to access lucrative export markets for their agricultural products through biofuels – specifically to industrialised countries, but this has to be balanced with the needs and demands for basic food security. While Frost & Sullivan believes this balance is possible to obtain, it will require significant investment in both agricultural production and the development of new technologies, concluded the release.

So there you have it! Problem solved. Pour significant investment into the market and everyone is a winner. But let’s just have a look at those countries again: Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe. While Botswana and South Africa are stable with good ratings, it would be a very brave investor who committed large amounts of funds to Mozambique, Namibia and Zimbabwe, and therein lies the rub.

Potentially these countries could indeed make a huge contribution to the pool of biofuel feedstock producers, but I believe that, as it stands, it is unlikely to happen. Consequently, the vast figures, for African biofuel feedstock production, that are built into many of the current forecasts are unrealistic. Certainly in the short to medium term, say the next 5 to 10 years.

The frustrating thing is that feedstock cultivation in these countries could provide them with much needed income, energy and food. However, in the current climate it simply isn’t going to happen.

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Sadly, however, some students at Brown University and their half witted friends at Greenwash Guerillas, don’t think this is the right way to go about things. It would seem that silencing critics is easier as New York Times columnist and author Thomas Friedman was pied by the Greenwash Guerillas while giving an Earth Day Lecture at Brown University. (see the video at the end of this piece.)

There is a long history of organizations and governments who chose to squash comment and opinion that they didn’t agree with; the Nazis, Pol Pot, Stalin, Robespierre to name a few. I’m sure Greenwash Guerillas and the students at Brown are proud to be associated with such company.

Perhaps the next step for The Greenwash Guerillas set-up a book burning night where they can get rid of any book that they consider transgresses their greenwash rules.

Whatever happened to the idea, often attributed to the great thinker Voltaire:

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

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For those of you who have, so far, missed this particular piece of nonsense let me bring you up to speed. Early last year the effect of a piece of US Federal legislation, enacted in 2004, started to be felt in Europe. The legislation, designed to support the US biodiesel industry, effectively gave a subsidy of about $300/tonne, in the form of tax credits, to a B99.9 blend biodiesel. In other words, a drop of mineral diesel in the tonne of biodiesel produced a huge subsidy.

The demand for diesel/biodiesel is however, greater in Europe, and it wasn’t long before US biodiesel producers recognised that if they exported their B99.9 subsidised biodiesel to Europe they could come into the market at a price which the European producers simply couldn’t match. Moreover, by exporting it to Europe they were eligible for European subsidies.

The European Biodiesel Board started complaining about what it saw as predatory action by the US producers early last year. It has continued to complain in the interim and has now (25th April) presented an anti-dumping, anti-subsidy complaint to the European Commission (see statement).

The US National Biodiesel Board has, not surprisingly, mounted a robust defence (see reply) suggesting that the problem was pretty much up to Europe to sort out internally. In a statement the NBB said; ““It is unfortunate that the situation has come to this. For months, while the EBB played politics and engaged in heated rhetoric, we have offered to work through these issues without resorting to litigation. These efforts have been rebuffed.”

The statement continued in similar vein, suggesting that it was a ruse by the Europeans to bring in protectionist legislation, but sadly it did not address the core complaint from the Europeans, that the subsidised fuel was being dumped on the European market. I have asked the NBB for a clear statement on the dumping charge, but so far I have had no reply.

So the crucial question appears to be, is the action of exporting subsidised biodiesel dumping? Well the definition of dumping is;

The sale of a commodity in a foreign market at less-than-fair value. Dumping is generally recognized as an unfair practice because the practice can disrupt markets and injure producers of competitive products in an importing country.

I think that on this occasion the Europeans are correct. It is dumping and the US should do something about it as soon as possible. While there maybe a short term gain to be had, long term,dumping does nothing but muddy the waters. We need an open and fair market, its good for the industry, its good for the consumer and, above all its good for the producer.

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Well this week we have another op/ed columnist at the NY Times, Roger Cohen, whose piece “Bring on the right biofuels” rather neatly offers the other side of the story. In a nutshell he suggests that it is time to ditch the hysteria, look at the science and make positive choices about the biofuels that can help so many. It’s worth a read.

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But as Dr. Holt-Giménez so rightly points out this crisis has been in the making for decades. While it is convenient to point the finger at biofuels, the international community really does need to get together and do something about it now. Right now!

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He is, of course, referring to a real and chronic shortage of staple food stuffs around the world. While I may not like his writing style, he is absolutely right. He is also bang on the nose when he suggests that there are a variety of reasons for the problem; “How did this happen? The answer is a combination of long-term trends, bad luck — and bad policy.”

He goes on to list some of the reasons; growing demand for meat in Asia, the price of oil, and the recent run of bad harvests. Again bang on. But then he warms to his central theme and tackles policy, and here it all starts to go very wrong for Krugman.

“The rise of China and other emerging economies is the main force driving oil prices, but the invasion of Iraq — which proponents promised would lead to cheap oil — has also reduced oil supplies below what they would have been otherwise”, he asserts. Great argument but factually wrong. According to the International Energy Agency and reported by the BBC last December “Iraqi oil exceeds pre war output“, Iraq was producing 2.3 million barrels per day, a figure “above the levels seen before the US-led invasion of the country in 2003″.

The bad weather and harvests he says are “probably” caused by global warming. Arguable, I don’t necessarily disagree but it could have been just a bad harvest, they have happened before. So perhaps on the policy level, his accusation that governments who have done nothing about greenhouse gases should shoulder some of the blame, is OK.

Having quite clearly argued that there are a variety of reasons as to why the crisis is with us, he then takes a huge leap and essentially blames the whole problem on biofuels. “Where the effects of bad policy are clearest, however, is in the rise of demon ethanol and other biofuels.”

Although deforestation has been going on for decades, often for food production and logging, Krugman nevertheless seems to suggests that Brazil’s ethanol policy is solely to blame for the acceleration of climate change by promoting deforestation.

He continues; “And meanwhile, land used to grow biofuel feedstock is land not available to grow food, so subsidies to biofuels are a major factor in the food crisis.” While the first part of the statement is undeniably true, the second part is a complete non-sequitur. As it stands the first statement has no relationship to the second whatsoever.

Finally he gives up all reasoned argument and goes for the trusted tool of the op-ed writer, emotion. “You might put it this way: people are starving in Africa so that American politicians can court votes in farm states.”

What really annoys me is the core of his argument is right and something really does need to be done about the food shortages. Krugman also gets it right in four paragraphs close to the end of his piece where he says that; “one reason the food crisis has gotten so severe, so fast, is that major players in the grain market grew complacent.” Absolutely right!

The world has wandered into this with its eyes wide open, but never believed it could happen. It could and it did. It was a frightening mix of idleness, stupidity and complacency. Biofuels is inevitably part of that mix. But let’s be quite clear Mr Krugman the problem we face today isn’t because of biofuels.

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