Who could have foreseen that the commodity that powered the industrial revolution in the 19th century and fuelled economic growth in the 20th would trigger two if not three of the greatest public concerns in the 21st? Energy security and climate security are inextricably related to the political economy of fossil fuels. And now if the article in the most recent issue of Foreign Affairs by Professors Ford Runge and Benjamin Senauer of the University of Minnesota entitled ‘How biofuels could starve the poor’ is substantiated, food security may also be a consequential fallout. The message is straightforward.

Biofuels offered a glimmer of hope to oil import dependent countries convulsed by OPEC’s decision to quadruple the price of crude oil in 1973. It was seen as one of several sustainable alternatives to gasoline and diesel. In 1974, the US legislated measures to promote the production of ethanol from corn. The ethanol distillers were offered a panoply of tax breaks and incentives including import tariff protection. The US has today 113 ethanol plants that produce about 6 billion gallons every year (350,000 b/d) and whilst this accounts for 44.5 per cent of global ethanol production, it constitutes an insignificant proportion of its domestic energy basket.

Brazil was the second country to embark on the production of biofuels. It had greater success in reorienting its pattern of energy consumption. Today 40 per cent of its automotive fuel is from sugar-based ethanol; 80 per cent of the cars sold in 2006 were ‘flex fuel’ in that they can run on both ethanol or gasoline and the retail infrastructure allows a motorist to decide at the pump itself whether to fill the tank with ethanol or gasoline or a blend of both.

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