Do we really want to go there?

I was going to write something about the pitfalls facing large-scale deployment of hydrogen fuel cell technology (see the post about the fuel cell-powered motorcycle below), but I got sidetracked. I have long been a fan of biodiesel as a more viable alternative to petroleum fuel (also see here and here, but I'm having some second thoughts. This article by George Monbiot gets at some of my concerns. "Those who have been promoting these fuels are well-intentioned, but wrong," he says. "They are wrong because the world is finite. If biofuels take off, they will cause a global humanitarian disaster."

This seems a little extreme to me, but he has a point. Widespread use of biofuels, particularly those made on a large (i.e., commercial scale directly from plants or seeds and -- not from, for example, waste cooking oil -- will certainly have an impact on the food supply. Given the current fuel (in)efficiency of vehicles, and the current utilization of internal combustion engines as a primary source of transport (yes, our precious cars, but also for transporting the food we eat, the products we buy, etc. etc.), the sheer quantity of fuel required (even to use biodiesel for a proportion of our transport needs) will certainly have, as Monbiot says, an "impact on global food supply [that is] catastrophic: big enough to tip the global balance from net surplus to net deficit. If, as some environmentalists demand, it is to happen worldwide, then most of the arable surface of the planet will be deployed to produce food for cars, not people."

Well, duh. I mean, who has the resources to purchase agricultural products, whether they are food or fuel, for the "best" (yes, of course that means highest) price. Monbiot provides a clue, in case you are clueless here: "People who own cars have more money than people at risk of starvation. In a contest between their demand for fuel and poor people’s demand for food, the car-owners win every time."

And another sobering thought: "Those who worry about the scale and intensity of today’s agriculture should consider what farming will look like when it is run by the oil industry."

Well, shit. That's gonna keep me up all night all by itself.

So what to do? You know the drill: Drive less. Ride your bike. Walk. Don't commute so damn far. And yeah, if you have the time, money, and inclination, get an old diesel auto (or one of those sexy new European ones) and install a conversion kit (see here and here for starters) so that you can run it on waste cooking oil.

And I don't think hydrogen fuel cells are going to save us, either. Surely we'll think of something, right?