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Source: ONE News -
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- Biofuel is solid, liquid or gaseous fuel derived from recently dead plant and vegetable matter - as opposed to fossil fuels like oil and coal, which are formed from ancient biological material.
- Unlike fossil fuels, the biomass extracted from recently living plants and animals is a renewable energy source. It can include manure, garden waste, or crop residues.
- Many countries in Europe, Asia, and the Americas began to seriously consider biofuels for the first time this year in the face of skyrocketing oil costs and an awareness of the environmental damage burning fossil fuels causes.
- While the benefits of biofuel alternatives have been well-documented, there is spreading concern about its human and environmental cost. Diverting increasing amounts of fertile land for the production of biofuels is said to ultimately harm international food supply. In April 2008, in the face of major food shortages in Haiti, Sudan, Bangladesh, and a number of other poor nations, UN Rapporteur Jean Ziegler called biofuels "a crime against humanity". Others have called for a moratorium on biofuel production until more sustainable ways of making it are perfected.
- In countries with burgeoning biofuel industries, major deforestation has taken place to make way for crop production. In nature, biomass is left on the ground, consumed by microorganisms, and broken down in the soil to produce valuable nutrients that mean the soil can sustain future crops. If that biomass is harvested to be used as fuel, the soil's quality and capacity to sustain crops is increasingly degraded.
- As well, a biodiversity study in May this year warned of the dangers invasive and fast-growing biofuel crops presented to local flora and fauna if introduced into an ecosystem. For example, the African oil palm has already become invasive in parts of the Brazilian rainforest.
- The Labour government passed a bill imposing mandatory biofuel requirements in September this year. Passed with a 20 vote majority, it meant biofuels would have to make up 0.5% of oil companies' annual sales in NZ. That threshold would increase annually to reach 2.5% by 2012. National was highly critical of the legislation.
- In fact, foreign investors in NZ's domestic biofuel industry questioned some of the effects of the bill. At least one, Argent Energy, shelved plans to invest more than $100 million here, citing the uneven nature of the legislation, which supposedly favoured oil company imports over domestic producers.
- Other investors have forged ahead, broking new deals over new biofuel technologies. In October, New Zealand's Aquaflow Bionomic Corporation signed an agreement with a US group to use wild algae grown in Marlborough to produce renewable fuel.
- In November, Air New Zealand announced it would become the world's first commercial airline to mount a test flight powered by a sustainable second-generation biofuel. Their material was sourced from environmentally friendly farms in south-eastern Africa and India.
