UK govt scientist sees few benefits from biofuels

Finally someone is waking up. I'm a little disappointed this guy still thinks biofuels are viable considering Brazil might be completely deforested, but its a start.

Rising production of biofuels has distorted government budgets, helped to drive up food prices and led to deforestation in south-east Asia, the chief scientist of Britain's farm ministry said on Friday.

"The way we are currently producing biofuels is not the way to go," former World Bank chief scientist Robert Watson said, citing the U.S. ethanol programme and German support for biodiesel as among the least cost effective.

Watson told the Oxford Farming Conference that biofuels production from sugar cane in Brazil may be one of the only sustainable current methods.

He added that there needed to be aggressive research and development and in five to 10 years time it was possible that new, better technologies could be commercially viable.

Crispin Tickell, director of the Policy Foresight Programme at Oxford University's James Martin Institute of Science and Civilization, said U.S. ethanol policy had been "disastrous."

Via Reuters.