Fuelling the biofuels debate

Over two years ago I wrote on another blog that biofuels would be a crucial factor in the ‘08 race for the Whitehouse. It was, I boldly forecast, going to be such an important topic that it would be the key to the success or failure of the candidates’ campaigns.

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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