Biofuels campaign is driven by mass delusion

SO MEP Maireád McGuinness promotes growing biofuel crops for transport, which she says could represent 4% of diesel consumption (only 2.5% of vehicle fuel).

But what use is this with traffic growing at 7% per annum? This would require about 100,000 hectares, taking 8% of arable land out of food production. Many experts calculate that the gross energy input, including fertilisers, etc, is greater than the energy the biofuels actually produce.

And now Energy Minister Eamon Ryan is demanding that petrol and diesel contains 4% biofuel. This will have to be imported, resulting in higher food prices, increased poverty and deforestation in the countries from which it comes. Subsidising the production and consumption of biofuel is further nonsense.

This is as loopy as Minister Ryan’s idea of replacing conventional cars with electric ones, using electricity produced from natural gas, when it would be twice as energy efficient and far simpler and cheaper to convert cars to run directly on gas.

So according to the Government, biofuels will solve fossil fuel dependency, electric cars will tackle global warming, and reducing the drink-drive limit will cure road carnage.

Addiction to, dependence on and obsession with cars is destructive to the economy, to the environment and to public health. The only sane solution is traffic reduction, which can be achieved by road pricing to cut unnecessary journeys and by transferring most passenger car journeys to public transport, which must be rebuilt.

By encouraging mass delusion and disseminating techno-mythology the Government is only making matters far worse.

Michael Job

Rossnagrena

Glengarriff

Co Cork