Biofuels and Sustainability Standards

Upon first glance, it is great to utilize all energy sources that are not fossil fuel based so the U.S. becomes less dependent on fossil fuels for their energy consumption. However, as the evidence has shown, not all biofuels especially corn ethanol are as energy efficient as they can be and during the production process, they utilize fossil fuels, which are clearly not sustainable because of the harm done to overall environmental quality. Nevertheless, given their relative abundance now for use compared to other sources like wind and solar, it is fair to say that biofuels are the U.S.'s best bet to start to make the transition from fossil fuels to renewable resources.

Although biofuels are renewable, there still needs to be some close scrutiny of how they are utilized and used by consumers, businesses, and others. In particular, there needs to be standards shown that illustrate how the biofuels are sustainable in terms of not only helping the economy but also not detrimentally harming the environment too. The European Union, for example, is setting standards for biofuels such as "'Protecting untouched nature'-the fuels must not be made from raw materials from tropical forests or recently deforested areas, drained peatlands, wetlands (and) biofuels have to deliver savings of at least 35% compared with fossil fuels, rising to 50% in 2017 and to 60% by 2018."

The U.S. government, therefore, in its quest to give subsidies to the biofuels industry should do so with some strings attached by taking a closer look at the actions being taken by the European Union. What the European Union is doing, therefore, is showing how biofuels themselves may not be sustainable if, in fact, they involve the cutting down of forests for farmland.  As such, the U.S. government should insist that biofuel production can happen and be part of the U.S. energy portfolio, if and only if, no forested land was cut down in order to accommodate huge farms. Biofuels are relatively abundant now and can replace fossil fuels today especially for transportation, which accounts for a huge chunk of the carbon dioxide emissions here in the U.S.  However, as the EU points out, biofuels in some cases are energy intensive and may burn more carbon dioxide than the fossil fuels they are replacing simply because of their overall production process.  Consequently, the U.S. can learn a lot from the EU and look to it as a model for how to set sustainability standards for biofuel production.