I have stated that Bio-Fuels were a large cause of rising food prices based on the extensive adoption of the content standard in the European Union, US and Canada. Once again I love reading about when others share my views, even if they were not published. An economist at the World Bank apparently agrees with me and a report that was buried has been shown the light of day. Read the News report...
Bio-Fuels Report Leaked - World Bank
I have stated how demand for feedstock for the Industry was causing the biofuel refiners, pockets chock full of tax money in the form of subsidies, to shop the world food market for supply ( increasing demand and out bidding other industries ). I also showed how bio-fuels demand could effect the price of non-feedstock commodities such as rice. So if the report is correct the problem is even worse than I suspected, I wonder how much is fear induced pricing from the rising demand for biofuel feedstock, Investment speculation and how much can be truly accounted for in the supply and demand on the global market.
This story is going to get much more traction over the next week or so and hopefully we will see the report itself. Things like this are seldom as bad as the headlines suggest they are, so take this with a grain of salt for now.
BioFuels 2.0 Update - Garbage into Fuel
I have done some research on this and the estimated number in tones of waste required and the energy input amount is quite alarming if the estimates I have heard are right. (In order to not be a accused of spreading false information, I will follow-up with some published numbers from the Industry instead of the rumour mill when I get them ) Just like bio-diesel from used cooking oils will not seriously impact the supply, the amount of "sorted municipal waste" available in the world would not even get close to denting the demand. Ethanol from wood waste kills me too, with nearly all the mills in our province shutdown I think all the waste is already being used by the new fuel pellet industry, another so called biofuel that I call the technical name ...wood.
The plus side is sorting facilities for municipal waste will need to be created. I am a huge fan of this, it stops the crazy business where consumers sort the trash, pay for pickup and the municipality or collection company sells the recyclable waste. They get paid for the service and the recyclable content with none of the effort. Central sorting gives you higher recovery rates and better sorting quality, this translates into a more diverse range of recyclable materials coming out and a larger supply for recycling companies meaning lower input costs and cheaper products.
So watch for the World Bank Report in its entirety and remember to lobby your city or municipal government to institute central point waste sorting and ditch the blue bins.