On biofuels
My friend Zoe used to be the chief executive of an oil company.
Honestly. You didn't realise I had such high-powered friends, did you? It's entirely true though. Not that her little company was one of the big players in the oil market, I have to admit. The little secondhand fuel pump in a small industrial unit on the outskirts of Brighton was never a rival to Esso, Shell, or BP - but there was a steady bunch of loyal customers who preferred to fill the tanks of their colourfully painted old transit campers with Zoe's refined chip fat biodiesel, rather than the crude stuff the garages sell us.
Sadly, Brighton Biodiesel is no more. I forget the details of exactly why it closed down - there was some exciting tale of Zoe's partner in the business buying a Russian wife on the internet and leaving the country suddenly if I recall correctly. Close down it did though - which is a crying shame. Turning a waste product into something you can power your car with is a very sensible thing to do. I'm all in favour of chip fat biodiesel.
So why don't I like the EU's policy of obliging the oil companies to ensure that road fuel includes a certain proportion of biofuel? Surely that's a good thing isn't it?
The trouble is that recycled chip fat - even in a society wedded to the deep fat fryer - can only ever account for a tiny fraction of the fuel needed to power our transport system. Most biodiesel comes from other sources. Specifically, it comes from palm oil plantations, and palm oil plantations are nasty. The land where palm oil grows well - and a lot of it is needed - is mostly at the moment covered with tropical forest. Forest is a good thing, as far as the earth's carbon budget goes, and chopping it down is not a good thing. Once it's chopped down, the palm oil is rarely organically farmed in harmony with nature either. These plantations are big agribusiness, with heavy machinery and pesticides used intensively. Even if we were just to consider the carbon implications of using palm oil for biodiesel, the worth would be questionable due to the land use change needed. When we consider the other environmental costs, it's clear that it's a daft policy.
The trouble with the EU and American quotas for biodiesel is that they are indiscriminate, and oil companies left to their own devices will simply choose the cheapest option to fulfill their quotas, without taking a blind bit of notice of the environmental cost. Something a bit more sophisticated is needed. Just what, I'm not quite sure at the moment, and frankly I'm hungry and I think I've written enough for now. I'm heading off to the chippy.