A win-win situation (until someone loses)

If the current concern over biofuels like ethanol can be boiled down to one essential point, it’s this: food should go in stomachs, not gas tanks.

Even those who defend ethanol tend to concede that corn might not be the best choice as a biomass, which is exactly why so-called “next generation” biofuels made from cellulosic materials seem like the perfect solution. Including tough, fibrous materials like trees, grasses and agricultural wastes, cellulosic ethanol doesn’t use the kinds of edible crops that raise food prices. What’s more, crops like switchgrass tend to use less water than their agricultural counterparts, making them natural conservationists.

It’s a win-win situation, until someone loses.

In this case, that loser might be the very same farmland we’re trying to preserve. According to a paper (100 KB PDF) by the Global Invasive Species Programme (GISP), “a number of the most commonly recommended species for biofuel production are also major invasive species in many parts of the world.” (Fittingly, one particularly infamous example of invasive alien species, the cane toad, is so named because of its use as a natural pesticide in sugar cane crops—another crop commonly used in biofuel).

The report calls for a level of caution that isn’t often associated with booming multibillion dollar industries fuelled by aggressive government subsidies, but with often-quoted crop substitutions like switchgrass on the list, and global panic rising in direct proportion to food prices, it’s worth wondering out loud whether caution will win the day. While many European governments have already rolled back their ethanol subsidies, for example, both the United States and Canada remain committed to some of the only concrete action either has taken on climate change.

If neither edible nor inedible plants belong in our cars’ gas tanks, what’s left to burn?