One example is the Ensus bio-ethenol plant to be built on Teesside which will use about 1.2 million tonnes of wheat a year – that’s over 3000 tonnes every single day and amounts to about 8% of UK wheat production. There are several other ethenol plants either under construction or at the planning stage as well as biodiesel plants that will need large areas of land to grow the oilseeds needed.
At the same time, electricity generating companies are burning more biomass grown on good cropland. They are anxious to do this because in the UK, they are penalised if they fail to produce a certain proportion of electricity using renewable sources.
Drax Power Limited is to triple the amount of Miscanthus (Elephant grass) it burns each year to 300,000 tonnes by the end of 2009. This will need an additional 35,000 acres of land as well as the land to grow the willow that they also burn.
 In Viewpoint magazine, Stefan Vogel says, “……The world demand for grain and oilseeds is growing, even without the biofuel boom. In six out of the last seven years the global use of grain exeeded production and thus grain stocks nearly halved since 2000 to 318 mln t and the stock-to-use ratio declined to 16%. This trend should continue due to a higher food and feed use, but also due to the demand for biofuels. In the United States for example maize used for ethenol production in 2006/2007 is estimated at 55 mln t, up from 41 mln t one year earlier. Thus use for ethenol production matched US maize export tonnage and should increase to 80 mln t in 2007/2008…….”
These are truly huge figures which will mean that nations that have previously been large exporters of grain will soon be using all the surplus for domestic biofuel production.
Should the nations that rely to a large extent on imported food be worried?
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