Biofuels for transportation: the next energy revolution or a fix that fails?

Dec 2007

This report reviews the drivers around the recent rush to biofuels and provides a snapshot of this technology and its potential. It also attempts, using a “systems thinking” approach, to reframe the debate from one of technology to one focused on the services that transportation fuels provide and the factors that shape these services in the global economy.
Through this lens, a range of options that are more economically, socially and environmentally attractive than biofuels come to the fore.
Authors argue that biofuels will undoubtedly be a part of the transportation energy portfolio moving forward, either as a temporary bridge to carbon-neutral fuels or as an enduring portion of the overall transportation fuel mix. However, they found that the recent push to view biofuels as a response to climate change is unfounded and that the resulting singular focus on one technology is misguided and could potentially skew the outcome of new innovations for the transportation fuels portfolio.

By: Business for Social Responsibility (BSR)

 
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