Why subsidise biofuel motorists?

YOUR leader (November 19) makes the case for “encouraging biofuels”.

But if, as it says, we are worried about soaring oil prices, sustainability and the environment we should be discouraging oil consumption, which is quite a different matter.

You make the comparison with smoking, but we discourage smoking by making it more expensive and more inconvenient, not by paying people to smoke low-tar or filter cigarettes.

We should not be subsidising motorists by subsidising biofuels. Like motorists, smokers and drinkers pay high taxes, but they also pay the full cost of the product; motorist do not pay for roads, yet we are making biodiesel tax-free, as well as paying a subsidy to farmers and manufacturers.

Even if the EU target of 10% biofuels by 2015 were achievable, with traffic increasing at 7% per annum it is not going to reduce oil consumption.

There are other issues. The use of crops to produce biofuels is pushing up the cost of food. In the US the price of corn has doubled and in poor countries people will starve if crops are used for biofuels rather than food. The bulldozing of tropical rain forest to produce palm oil is environmentally destructive and results in the emission of greenhouse gases, the eventual loss of topsoil, and changes the local micro-climate.

Although the manufacturers of biofuels produce various ‘scientific’ reports, independent studies indicate that the total energy needed to produce biofuels is greater than the energy they deliver. Furthermore, fertiliser is produced from fossil fuels.

The idea that Ireland can be independent in biofuels is nonsense — even if all the arable land was used, it would not be enough for a quarter of the cars currently on the roads.

Except for the use of waste products, biofuels is a ‘no-brainer’, popular with politicians as a means of avoiding reality and confrontation with motorists and road lobby.

Michael Job

Rossnagreana

Glengarriff

Co Cork