Food and Biofuels
Royal Dutch Shell staked out an interesting position this week:
Royal Dutch Shell, the world’s top marketer of biofuels, considers using food crops to make biofuels “morally inappropriate” as long as there are people in the world who are starving, an executive said Thursday.
Eric Holthusen, a fuels technology manager for the Asia-Pacific region, said the company’s research unit, Shell Global Solutions, has developed alternative fuels from renewable resources that use wood chips and plant waste rather than food crops that are typically used to make the fuels.
I’m not going to say they are wrong. Certainly there is a role for someone to be speaking for that position.
That said, this is as old as mankind. Specialty crops are often grown by the poorest, and sent off to the richest societies. How many of us have coffee in front of us?