A Peculiar Sign of Success
by Joelle Brink (Biofuels Digest Asia) It was quite a shock to return from the exciting and very sustainability-oriented Advanced Biofuels Leadership Conference in Washington, DC to headlines like “Are our biofuel mandates fueling Islamic extremism in Egypt?” Well, no actually. Had the writer watched closely he might have noted that the protests were against brutal and corrupt dictators who throw lavish banquets and keep most of the food and financial resources for themselves while failing to provide work, basic subsistence and human rights for the poor. A classic case of “Let them eat cake.”
Egypt does have a major biofuels project, the largest in the Middle East, the New Nile Company’s seawater-based food and fuel farm in partnership with the Seawater Foundation. New Nile uses the runoff from existing fish and shrimp aquaculture farms as fertilizer.
…In New Zealand, Biodiesel NZ grows canola on arable land, but the grain is reserved for food and cooking oil, the stalks for high protein animal feed, and the used cooking oil is collected to make biodiesel. Three distinct products are marketed instead of one, reducing waste and producing more farm income for rural areas. READ MORE and MORE (Washington Examiner)