The Biofuels Debate

The debate over biofuels isn’t new: for years, experts and environmentalists have argued about the use of biofuels as an eco-friendly solution to fossil fuels. On one hand, creating clean-burning ethanol from plants is a good solution to the greenhouse gas problem. But on the other hand, growing crops for biofuels requires a lot of land – and cutting down forests to create eco-friendly power seems like a contradiction, especially if producing biofuels leads to rising food prices.

The Guardian recently featured an article about British companies acquiring land in Africa solely for producing biofuels. According to the article, about 3.2 hectares of land in various African countries have been earmarked as fuel plantations.

We’d like to hear your thoughts: are biofuels a good replacement for fossil fuels, or are they the wrong solution to the search for clean energy?