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Only Entrepreneurs without Conscience support agrofuels

Food not Fuel | 17.03.2009 17:11 | Climate Chaos | Ecology | Technology

Food not Fuel (London) and Biofuelwatch held a banner protest against the presence of agrofuel company Blue NG at the “Entrepreneurs with Conscience” conference on Monday, 16th March. Blue NG are planning to build the UK’s first vegetable oil power plants.

Entrepreneurs without conscience - a better name for the event!
Entrepreneurs without conscience - a better name for the event!

Entrpreneurs arriving
Entrpreneurs arriving

The orang-utan gets it!
The orang-utan gets it!



Blue NG are planning to build the UK’s first vegetable oil power plants, despite overwhelming evidence from scientists, institutions and civil society organisations that agrofuels are accelerating deforestation and thus global warming, as well as pushing up food prices, particularly in poorer countries.

Blue NG has won support by promoting geo-pressure, which acted as a cover for agrofuels and the lucrative agrofuel subsidies which make the project so profitable. Geo-pressure was never even part of the planning application for the first biofuel plant at Beckton!

Blue NG, promote rapeseed oil as a sustainable fuel even though the UN FAO has conclusively linked its use in transport fuels to increased imports of palm oil in the EU. Blue NG have also refused a request from Biofuelwatch to confirm they would not burn palm oil. To date Blue NG has offered no binding commitments on sourcing or sustainability…only frequently varying claims!

Each power plant burns 56,000 litres of vegetable oil a day; if the 43 intended plants are of similar size this would amount to nearly half of the UK’s entire rapeseed oil crop!

Food not Fuel

Comments

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all entrepreneurs

17.03.2009 17:35

... whether they support or oppose agrofuels, can fuck right off.

that is all :-)

lolwob

More info

17.03.2009 17:37

This protest was held outside the Royal Society in London which was hosting the "Entrepreneurs with Conscience" event.
See also  http://www.foodnotfuel.org.uk/ and  http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk

Food not Fuel

A few points

18.03.2009 09:55

lolwob, not all entrepeneurs are in it for the money, some come up with great ideas: improvements in solar technologies, wind and marine current power systems and biochar agriculture.

The Food vs Fuel arguement is making very black and white something which is quite grey. Yes displacing food production/virgin forests for fuel production is wrong, but we produce too much food as it is/have screwed up ways of distributing food internationally. One replacing the other comes down too often to which is more profitable rather than any coordinated, balanced attempt to grow enough of both. The field of Biochar agriculture, something amazonian civilisations were using successfully pre-columbus, promises great increases in soil fertility and crop yields using nothing artificial, and may even be able to halt or reverse desertification if correctly used on the right scale. Of course this is pointless if humans will insist on unsustainable population growth which will exceed whatever earth + technology can provide. I wonder if anyone has worked out the sustainable population of earth if both food and fuel are grown?

Without fuels such as liquid petroleum/agrofuels, transport as we know it will likely end. Very few are prepared for that kind of future so biofuels are the only contender for truely sustainable transport. That does not mean 2% biofuel + 98% petrol is sustainable. This only helps initially in providing a ready market for the first biofuel production before mass adoption of biofuel engines.

McQn