The US government has spent billions in biofuel subsidies over the past two decades, accomplishing little except to line the pockets of US corn farmers. Good for them, bad for the rest of us and the planet. To quote:
“…because many biofuel feedstocks require land, water, and other resources, research suggests that biofuel production may give rise to several undesirable effects. Potential drawbacks include changes to land use patterns that may increase GHG emissions, pressure on water resources, air and water pollution, and increased food costs. Depending on the feedstock and production process and time horizon of the analysis, biofuels can emit even more GHGs than some fossil fuels on an energy-equivalent basis..” - Economics of Biofuel/Environmental Protection Agency, March 4, 2021
“…the impact of more biofuel production on GHGs emission reduction is still controversial in the literature... Its contribution to the efficiency of the transport system is also debatable: it may be negligible but it may also prove limiting as more biofuel in the market may push back research for greater efficiency because emissions reduction would already be achieved via the biofuel production. The underlying logic of this chain of events is that if the GHGs emission problem were to be largely addressed by more biofuel production, investment in other low carbon sectors would be pushed back. In the same vein, more biofuel production could also counteract the objective of supporting low carbon technology and of incentivizing more climate friendly land use.” - Munaretto, S., & Witmer, M. Water-Land-Energy-Food-Climate nexus: policies and policy coherence at European and international scale: Deliverable 2. 1. Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, 2017.
To be even more specific…
Thanks to political pressure from farmers and various industry groups, and despite abundant evidence that increasing biofuel production would do the planet more harm than good, the federal government continues to spend billions on biofuel subsidies every year. This has got to change.
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References
Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2022. The White House https://whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/
Economics of Biofuels. Environmental Protection Agency March 4, 2021 https://www.epa.gov/environmental-economics/economics-biofuels
Munaretto, S., & Witmer, M. (2017). Water-Land-Energy-Food-Climate nexus: policies and policy coherence at European and international scale: Deliverable 2.1 SIM4NEXUS project - Horizon 2020 - 689150. (D2.1 ed.) PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency. http://www.sim4nexus.eu/userfiles/Deliverables/WP2_Deliverable%202.1_FINAL_1.pdf
Understanding U.S. Corn Ethanol and Other Corn-Based Biofuels Subsidies Taxpayers for Common Sense. May 2021
USDA grants biofuel producers $700 million in COVID-19 aid Stephanie Kelly/Yahoo News. June 15, 2021