A new study adds to already heavy skepticism over China’s plans to put biofuels at the center of its ambitious alternative energy strategy. From AFP:
China and India, expected to account for nearly 70 percent of global oil demand between now and 2030, are using cheaper biofuels derived from crops to help power their economies, the International Water Management Institute said.
“But to grow biofuel crops you need to use more water and land,” Charlotte de Fraiture, a scientist at the institute and lead author of the biofuels study, told AFP.
China plans to use maize while India wants to use sugarcane for biofuel production. Both crops rely heavily on irrigation, de Fraiture said. [Full Text]
The original IMWI report is available here (PDF).
See also:
- “Chinese Biofuels Expansion Threatens Ecological Disaster,” from Worldwatch Insitute.
- “Many Biofuels Have More Climate Impact Than Oil,” last month’s surprising report from Reuters’ Beijing-based energy correspondent.
[Image: Maize grows near Taishan, by phonono via Flickr]
