Inspired by Brazil, where 3/4 of new cars use a combination of bio-fuel and gasoline, thirteen of Africa’s poorest nations are trying to become global suppliers of bio-fuel. In a meeting on Thursday, in the Senegalese capital of Dakar, they formed the African Non-Petroleum Producers Association (PANPP). President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal said, “The step to develop clean energy is all the more pertinent because it calls for immense areas of cultivable land, where Africa benefits from a clear advantage.”

Actually, the problem with bio-fuel, such as ethanol and bio-diesel, is that it isn’t a clean energy source unless the farms producing the plant material are operating in a recyclable loop without the use of any fossil fuel. Although farms like this can exist, (where unused plant parts are made into fertilizer, farm machinery runs on clean fuel, no pesticides are used, etc) they are currently a very small minority in the agricultural industry. Like global warming, this is one of those instances where politicians tout their policy as good clean logic, while the dissenting scientists are gagged and duct taped in the basement. Politicians in favor of bio-fuel are protecting their relationship with the Agribusiness Lobby, not the environment.

As a source of car fuel, bio-fuel actually does more damage to our environment than simply using petrol for your vehicle when you consider how much fossil fuel is needed to produce a single pound of food. Given an estimated population of 300 million Americans, the US uses 120 billion gallons of oil on food production each year, and that’s not even including packaging, refrigeration, and transportation. The truth of the matter is that the energy input to create bio-fuel far exceeds the output the fuel yields.

Depending on the crop, ethanol requires 29-57 percent more fossil energy to produce than it yields. Likewise, bio-diesel can require 27-118 percent more fossil energy than it yields. The only reason bio-fuel is more cost effective is because governments subsidize bio-fuel-producing corporations. Since you put in more energy than you get out, ethanol and bio-diesel actually make us MORE reliant on oil. So given the fact that bio-fuel is a great lie and detriment to the environment, my question is this: Is it really a good idea for Africa’s 13 poorest nations to be burning food?

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