Renova Energy Share Discussion Threads

[dasv] 06/7/2007 13:24

I hear from moneyweek that corn acreage is up affecting soya prices but more corn means lower prices for ethanol production which translates to higher profits for Renova.

[nickcduk] 06/7/2007 12:24

Market seems to be waking up to the fact that oil and gasoline prices are very firm. RVA will see its fair share of the windfall as a result.

[dasv] 06/7/2007 11:34

i'm holding, this is a good prospect for 2008, with limited potential for downside at these levels, and plenty of potential for upside.

[roverisback] 06/7/2007 10:59

sold out and took my profit...dont trust mms

[griffzinho] 02/7/2007 08:26

No mention of placing price re: GTL

Placing will be conducted in accordance
with the Placing Agreement and with the terms and conditions set out in the
appendix to this announcement. The number of Placing Shares to be issued
pursuant to the Placing and the price at which the Placing Shares will be issued
will be determined at the close of the bookbuild.

[jimarilo] 02/7/2007 07:32

GTL share placing announced today @ 100p oop's

[jimarilo] 30/6/2007 22:09

asparks - 29 Jun'07 - 11:04 - 786 of 788 (Filtered)

[dasv] 29/6/2007 11:54

enough asparks. you've made your point. which happens to not apply to renova.

[asparks] 29/6/2007 11:04

Biofuels: Biodevastation, hunger and false carbon credits

Europe's thirst for biofuels is fuelling deforestation and food price hikes, exacerbated by a false accounting system that awards carbon credits to the carbon-profligate nations. A mandatory certification scheme for biofuels is needed to protect the earth's most sensitive forest ecosystems, to stabilise climate and to safeguard our food security.

Dr Mae-Wan Ho

BIOFUELS are fuels derived from crop plants, and include biomass directly burnt, and especially biodiesel from plant seed oil, and bioethanol from fermenting grain, sap, grass, straw or wood. Biofuels have been promoted and mistakenly perceived to be 'carbon-neutral', that they do not add any greenhouse gas to the atmosphere; burning them simply returns to the atmosphere the carbon dioxide that the plants took out when they were growing in the field.
This ignores the costs in carbon emissions and energy of the fertiliser and pesticides used for growing the crops, of farming implements, processing and refining, refinery plants, transport, and infrastructure for transport and distribution. The extra costs in energy and carbon emissions can be quite substantial particularly if the biofuels are made in one country and exported to another, or worse, if the raw materials, such as seed oils, are produced in one country to be refined for use in another. Both are very likely if current trends continue.

Growing demand for biofuels

Demand for biofuels has been growing as the world is running short of fossil fuels. Oil and gas prices have shot up within the past several years, while the pressure to reduce carbon emissions to mitigate global warming is increasingly pointing to biofuels as one of the main solutions. George W Bush has offered biofuels to cure his country's addiction to oil. A 'billion-ton vision' was unveiled to make available 1.3 billion tons of dry biomass for the biofuels industry by the middle of this century, to provide 30% of US fuel use, if all things work out, such as a 50% increase in crop yield. Biofuels Corporation plc, the first 250,000 Mt biodiesel processing plant in the UK, was opened by Tony Blair at the end of June 2006, and it will be using imported castor oil and palm oil as well as home-grown rapeseed oil to make biodiesel. But the UK lags far behind other European Union (EU) countries in biofuel use.

Driving the biofuels industry in Third World countries

The EU adopted a Biofuels Directive in May 2003 to promote the use of biofuels in transport at 5.75% of market share by 2010, increasing to 8% by 2015. These targets are not likely to be met on current projections. The market share for EU25 is 1.4%; Austria leads at 2.5%, while the UK's share is a mere 0.2%.
The European Commission was to make a progress report before the end of 2006; it put out a document for public consultation, which ended in July 2006. Among the issues considered was the need for a biofuels certification scheme based on standards of sustainability.
EU countries are already growing bioenergy crops, mainly oilseed rape; and tax relief and incentives are granted for biofuels in 10 or more countries. The 'set-aside' agricultural land meant to protect and conserve biodiversity is likely to be brought back into agriculture to grow bioenergy crops.
A report published in 2002 by the CONCAWE group - the oil companies' European association for environment, health and safety in refining and distribution - estimated that if all 5.6 million hectares of set-asides in the EU15 nations were intensively farmed for bioenergy crops, we could save merely 1.3-1.5% of road transport emissions, or around 0.3% of total emissions from those 15 countries. These and other similarly pessimistic estimates are fuelling the growth in biofuels industries in Third World countries, where, we are now told, there is plenty of 'spare' land for growing bioenergy crops. The sunshine is brighter all year round, so crops grow faster and yield more, and labour is cheap.
In the case of genetically modified (GM) crops, however, we're told there isn't enough land and we need GM crops to boost yields to feed the world. GM crops have failed to boost yields so far, and are overwhelmingly rejected worldwide, especially in African countries where GM food and feed are being dumped as 'food aid'. Biotech companies are now already promoting GM crops as bioenergy crops and hoping for less regulation and more public acceptance, as they won't be used as food or feed. But that will leave our ecosystem and food crops wide open to contamination by GM crops that are far from safe. The United Kingdom Energy Research Centre, which consists of members from all the government research councils, has already included 'public perception and use of GM technologies for bioenergy' in its 'Short-term Research Challenge'.

Deforestation, species extinction and food price hikes

Biofuels are bad news, especially for poor Third World countries. Bioenergy crops do take up valuable land that could be used for growing food, and food security is becoming a burning issue. World grain yield has fallen for six of the past seven years, bringing reserves to the lowest in more than 30 years. Chronic depletion of aquifers in the major bread baskets of the world, drought and soaring temperatures are taking their toll and set to do even more damage to food production. The pressure on land from food and bioenergy crops will certainly speed up deforestation and species extinction, and at the same time result in food price increases worldwide, hitting the poorest, hungriest countries the hardest.

No spare land for energy crops

Calculations based on the best-case scenario of unrealistically high crop yields and high recovery of biofuels from processing still end up requiring 121% of all the farmland in the United States to grow enough biomass to substitute for the fossil fuels consumed each year.
The EU's own technical report published in 2004 shows that the target of 5.75% biofuel substitution for fossil fuels will require at least 14 to 19% of farmland to grow bioenergy crops. There will be no set-aside land left to protect natural biodiversity, as that's only 12% of farmland in the EU.
Satellite data reveal that 40% of the earth's land is already used up for agriculture, either growing crops or for pasture. There is no spare land for growing food, let alone bioenergy crops.

Deforestation speed-up in tropical Brazil, Malaysia and Indonesia

Tropical forests are the richest carbon stocks and the most effective carbon sinks in the world. Estimates run as high as 418 t C/ha in carbon stock, and 5 to 10 t C/ha a year sequestered, 40% of which is in soil organic carbon. The carbon stock in old growth forests would be even greater, and according to a new study in southeast China, soil organic carbon just in the top 20 centimetres of such old growth forests increased on average at a rate of 0.62 t C/ha each year between 1979 and 2003. When tropical forests are cut down at the rate of more than 14 million ha a year, some 5.8 Gt C is released to the atmosphere, only a fraction of which would be sequestered back in plantations.
The additional pressure on land from bioenergy crops will mean yet more deforestation and a greater acceleration of global warming and species extinction.
Vast swathes of the Amazon forest in Brazil have already been cleared for soybean cultivation to feed the meat industry so far. Adding soybean biodiesel to the requirement may cause the entire forest to die back. At the same time, sugarcane plantations that feed the country's huge bioethanol industry also encroach on the Amazon, but far more so on the Atlantic forest and the Cerrado, a very bio-diverse grassland ecosystem, two-thirds of which are already destroyed or degraded.
The pressure on the forests in Malaysia and Indonesia is even more devastating. A Friends of the Earth report, The Oil for Ape Scandal, reveals that between 1985 and 2000 the development of oil-palm plantations was responsible for an estimated 87% of deforestation in Malaysia. In Sumatra and Borneo, 4 million hectares of forests were lost to palm farms; and a further 6 million ha are scheduled for clearance in Malaysia and 16.5 million ha in Indonesia.
Palm oil is now referred to as 'deforestation diesel', as palm oil production in Indonesia and Malaysia is projected to rise dramatically in the biofuels fever. Palm oil is already widely used in the food and cosmetic industries, and has replaced soy as the world's leading edible oil. And as petrol and gas prices have gone through the roof, oil palm is finding its place as the major bioenergy crop. With yields of 5 tonnes (or 6,000 litres) of crude oil per ha a year, oil palm produces more by a long shot than any other oil crop; for example, soybeans and corn generate only 446 and 172 litres per ha a year.
Current global palm oil production of more than 28 million tonnes per year is set to double by 2020. Malaysia, the world's leading producer and exporter of palm oil, is making it mandatory for diesel to contain 5% palm oil by 2008, while Indonesia plans to halve its national consumption of petroleum by 2025 through substitution with biofuels. Malaysia and Indonesia have announced a joint commitment to each produce 6 million tonnes of crude palm oil per year to feed the production of biofuels.

More food crops diverted to biofuels production

Demand for biofuels has turned traditional food crops into 'bioenergy' crops. Food and energy now compete for the same 'feedstock', with the result that food prices have gone up substantially, over and above the price of petroleum and natural gas that normally goes into producing food. By 2006, around 60% of the total rapeseed oil produced in the EU has gone into making biodiesel. The price of rapeseed oil went up by 45% in 2005, and then an additional 30% to about US$800 per tonne. Food giant Unilever estimated a further price increase of some 200 euros per tonne for next year due to additional biodiesel demand. The total additional cost to food manufacturers from biodiesel is estimated to be close to 1,000 euros by 2007.
Cereal prices have shot up. US corn prices have increased by more than 50% since September 2006, and have now hit a 10-year high at US$3.77 a bushel. US demand for bioethanol has diverted corn from exports, leaving Asian corn buyers desperate. World wheat prices also hit a 10-year high of US$300 a tonne in October 2006, amid fears of a supply crisis within the next 12 months if there is another disappointing year of global production. Another concern is the rising demand for biofuels to be created from crops such as wheat, corn and soya.

Other environmental concerns

Bioenergy crops deplete soil minerals and reduce soil fertility especially in the long term, making the soil unsuitable for growing food. The processing wastes from all biofuels have substantial negative impacts on the environment, which have yet to be properly assessed and taken into account. Although some forms of biodiesel may be cleaner than diesel, others are not (see below). Burning bioethanol generates mutagens and carcinogens and increases ozone levels in the atmosphere.

Energy balance and carbon savings unfavourable on the whole

Biofuels are rated on energy and carbon in many different ways that are not completely transparent. The ones I shall use as defined are energy balance, the units of biofuel energy produced per unit of input energy; and carbon saving, the percentage of greenhouse gas emissions prevented by producing and using the biofuel instead of producing and using the same amount of fossil fuel energy.
Biofuels generally give small to negative energy balance on a life-cycle analysis, in fact, mostly negative energy balance when proper accounting is done, which means that the energy in the biofuel is less than the sum of the energy spent in making it. It is likely that carbon savings will be equally unfavourable when all the costs are included.
Currently, most energy audits that give positive energy balance include energy content of byproducts, such as the seedcake residue left over when oil has been extracted, that can be used as animal feed (though it is by no means so used as a rule), and fail to include infrastructure investments, such as the energy and carbon costs of building refinery plants, and roads and depots needed for transport and distribution; and certainly not the costs of exporting to another country. None of the audits includes environmental impacts. In the only case analysed by researchers at the Flemish Institute for Technological Research, sponsored by the Belgian Office for Scientific, Technical, and Cultural Affairs and the European Commission, it found that 'biodiesel fuel causes more health and environmental problems because it created more particulate pollution, released more pollutants that promote ozone formation, generated more waste and caused more eutrophication'.
A compilation of energy balance and carbon saving estimates is given in the above box. Sugarcane bioethanol in Brazil is estimated to have an energy balance of a staggering 8.3 on average, and up to 10.2 in the best case; far ahead of any other biofuel, especially those produced in temperate regions, estimates for which range from a high of 2.2 to well below 1, a negative energy balance. The carbon saving of Brazilian sugarcane bioethanol, at between 85 and 90%, is also bigger by far than that of any other biofuel, which ranges from just over 50% to -30%, i.e., the biofuel incurs 30% more greenhouse gas emissions to produce and use than the energy equivalent in fossil fuel.
With two exceptions, all estimates include energy in byproducts and exclude infrastructure costs. None include environmental damages or depletion of soil, or costs of export to another country. As can be seen, with the possible exception of Brazilian sugarcane bioethanol, none of the bioenergy sources gives good enough returns on investments in energy and carbon emissions, even with the best gloss put on. When realistic accounting is done, they could all result in negative energy balance and carbon saving.
There are features that account for the relative success of sugarcane bioethanol. Apart from the prolific growth rate of the crop in tropical Brazil, the production involves a closed cycle, where the energy for the refinery and distillery process comes from burning sugarcane residue; hence no fossil fuels are needed. Refining and distillation are very energy-intensive especially for bioethanol. The large energy balance will be reduced substantially when infrastructure and export costs are included, though it could still be positive.
But even with the positive energy and carbon accounting, there are serious doubts that sugarcane bioethanol is sustainable. Among the main concerns are ecological and social impacts, including food security. These are especially important in a country where human rights and land rights are very problematic.
There is a lot of false accounting that inflates carbon savings. For example, the huge loss of soil organic carbon due to intensive sugarcane cultivation replacing forests and pastureland has not been taken into account, nor has the fact that natural forests allowed to regenerate would save 7 t more carbon dioxide per ha each year than that saved by the bioethanol from a ha of sugarcane. And these are not the only forms of false accounting.

False carbon credits in southern Africa's JATROPHA biodiesel

Under international rules, none of the greenhouse gases linked to the production of biofuels will be attributed to the transport sector. The emissions that arise during biofuel production will be counted towards agricultural and industry and/or energy sector emissions. Also, all the emissions that come from growing and refining in Third World countries will count towards those countries' emissions, so a country importing the biofuel such as the UK can use them to improve its greenhouse gas inventory. This allows rich importing nations to out-source some of their emissions and claim credit for doing so under the Kyoto Protocol. This is how plantations of JATROPHA trees have become established in Malawi and Zambia.
Jatropha is a drought-resistant plant that requires little or no input of pesticides or fertilisers. Jatropha beans can be harvested three times a year, and the byproducts can be used to make soap and even medicine. Refining is done in South Africa. Many farmers switched from tobacco to JATROPHA, which is considered a good thing, as tobacco is a very environmentally unfriendly plant to grow. So far there are 200,000 ha of JATROPHA in Malawi and 15,000 ha in Zambia, almost all under a formal lease or agreements with the UK-based company D1 Oils.
Southern Africa is one of the most vulnerable regions in the world to climate change. All climate models predict that the region (not including most of South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland) will become a lot warmer and drier, with more frequent and severe droughts, interspersed by more severe flooding. This could cause massive crop failures and a collapse of food production.
About 80% of Zambia's population rely on biomass for all or most of their energy needs, with only 12% having access to electricity. In Malawi, 90% of primary energy production comes from biomass, i.e., firewood and charcoal. Most rural people rely on burning firewood, often on inefficient cooking stoves, which causes serious pollution and is a major cause of ill health and death. Women and girls are particularly affected.
Jatropha plantations may have serious impacts on the food and energy security of the region, especially if they expand. So far, there has been no life-cycle analysis or sustainability study on JATROPHA biofuel.

Transparent life-cycle auditing, environmental impact assessment and a mandatory certification scheme needed now

It is quite clear that biofuels currently come in many different forms, most of which are not carbon-neutral. There is an urgent need for transparent life-cycle auditing of energy and carbon emissions and other sustainability criteria involving impacts on health, environment and social welfare. Many have called for a mandatory certification scheme based on clear criteria of sustainability that safeguard the world's most sensitive forest ecosystems as well as the long-term fertility of our land and soil. These criteria should also guarantee food sovereignty (the right to be secure in food supply of people's own choice) and related land and labour rights to all.
We have many renewable and truly sustainable alternatives to the current biofuels, as described in the Institute of Science in Society (ISIS)'s 2006 Energy Report, Which Energy?. ISIS has proposed to assemble these options in a zero-emission, zero-waste food and energy 'Dream Farm 2'. One of the core technologies used is anaerobic digestion, which turns wastes (and environmental pollutants) into crop and livestock nutrients and energy in the form of biogas, consisting of 60% or more methane, which can be used to power cars as well as for generating electricity.
I have estimated that if all the biological and livestock wastes in Britain were treated in anaerobic digesters, it would supply more than half the country's transport fuel. Admittedly, the vehicles will need a different engine, but such cars are already on the market, and biogas methane-driven cars have exhausts so clean that they were voted environmental cars of the year in 2005.
Most significant of all, Dream Farm 2 runs entirely without fossil fuels. As Robert Ulanowicz, professor of theoretical ecology, says, 'I'll bet people will be surprised at how quickly the carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere can come down if we stop burning fossil fuels.'

Dr Mae-Wan Ho is Director and co-founder of the UK-based Institute of Science in Society , Editor of Science in Society magazine and scientific adviser to the Third World Network. The above article is reproduced from Science in Society (No. 33, Spring 2007).

[dasv] 29/6/2007 11:04

and how does this relate to renova? again I repeat - renova creates ethanol from corn.

(EU is correct in investigating palm oil imports after all it was their policies on biodiesel which have encouraged palm oil as a cash crop in malaysia and indonesia.)

[dasv] 29/6/2007 08:38

thanks for that asparks. i've done my fair share of conservation projects in emerging nations, but i'm still comfortable with my holding in renova. US corn is not equivalent to palm oil in kalimantan.

my point was - that the vast majority of companies are unethical if you dig deep enough. I mean capitalism is grounded on the endless exploitation of the world's resources, it's not designed to be sustainable, it's designed to generate wealth - which is derived at a fundamental level from resource exploitation. the world is geared-up to binge on its resources until it becomes economically advantageous not to do so. The only thing that will halt environmental damage is economics, and we are some way off a stage where damage to the environment is hurting business :(

[asparks] 29/6/2007 08:15

Call for an immediate moratorium on EU incentives for agrofuels, EU imports of agrofuels and EU agroenergy monocultures
The undersigned call for an immediate moratorium on EU incentives for agrofuels and agroenergy from large-scale monocultures including tree plantations and a moratorium on EU imports of such agrofuels. This includes the immediate suspension of all targets, incentives such as tax breaks and subsidies which benefit agrofuels from large-scale monocultures, including financing through carbon trading mechanisms, international development aid or loans from international finance organisations such as the World Bank. This call also responds to the growing number of calls from the global south against agrofuel monoculturesi, which EU targets are helping to promote.

Read the full document. Download a 140 KB pdf document.
Sign-up. Please send a message to [e-mail] "Signing Agrofuels Moratorium" in the subject line.
Please state whether you are signing as an individual or on behalf of an organisation.
Individuals: give name and country.
Organisations: give organisation's name and country.
Organisations calling for the moratorium include:
Arbeitsgemeinschaft Regenwald und Artenschutz
(Working Group on Rainforests and Biodiversity)

Arbeitsgruppe Schweiz - Kolumbien (ASK) - Grupo de Trabajo Suiza Colombia (Swiss Working Group on Colombia)

Asamblea Coordinadora Patagónica contra el Saqueo y la Contaminación

Base Investigaciones Sociales, Paraguay

BI „Kein Strom aus Palmöl!"

Biofuelwatch

Bruno Manser Fund (BMF) - Association for the peoples of the rainforest, Switzerland

Carbon Trade Watch

CEPPAS from Argentina

Corner House

Corporate Europe Observatory

Ecodevelop

EcoNexus

Ecoropa

FERN

Global Justice Ecology Project

GRAIN

Grupo Reflexion Rural

Munlochy Vigil

NOAH: Friends of the Earth Denmark

Observatorio de la Deuda en la Globalización (Catalonia, Spain)

Pesticide Action Network, Asia and the Pacific

Pro REGENWALD

Rettet den Regenwald

Robin Wood

Sawit Watch

SETARA Jambi/YKR, sumatera Indonesia

Solifunds, Switzerland

The Gaia Foundation

Transnational Institute

Watch Indonesia!

World Rainforest Movement

[dasv] 29/6/2007 08:15

yes for a clear conscience don't invest in oil, mining, aviation, banks (who fund unethical projects), governments - who invariably do something dodgy from human rights to unnecessary war, clothes retail, coffee, biotech.

;)

[asparks] 29/6/2007 08:02

invest with a clear conscience: avoid biofuels see www.grain.org

[jimarilo] 29/6/2007 08:01

Renova Energy plc

Results for the year ended 31 March 2007

Renova Energy plc (AIM:RVA), the ethanol production, distribution and marketing
company, today announces its results for the year ended 31 March 2007.

Financial

* 80% increase in turnover to $27.3 million (2006: $15.2 million)

* 62% increase in EBITDA from US operations to $3.4 million (2006: $2.1 million)

* 78% increase in Group operating cashflow to $1.6 million (2006: $0.9 million)

* 33% increase in total dividend to 2.0 cents/share (2006: 1.5 cents/share) with
proposed final dividend of 1.0 cent per share

* $19.1 million raised from the issue of 5 million new ordinary shares in
October 2006

* new syndicated debt facility of $40 million arranged

Operational

* 72% increase in total sales volumes to 10.5 MMgal (2006: 6.1 MMgal)

* 320% increase in third party marketing volumes to 4.2 MMgal (2006: 1.0 MMgal)

* distribution network expanded with throughput capacity now in excess of
60 MMgal/y

* expanded capacity plant at Torrington, WY, on-line from August 2006

* 25% increase in annual production to 6.5 MMgal (2006: 5.2 MMgal)

* construction of 20 MMgal/y facility in Heyburn, ID, 35% complete

[asparks] 29/6/2007 07:38

New from GRAIN
27 June 2007

No to the agrofuels craze!

GRAIN has just published a special issue of Seedling which focuses on biofuels, or as we like to call them, agrofuels - over 30,000 words of in-depth analysis from around the world.

In the process of gathering material from colleagues and social movements around the world, we have discovered that the stampede into agrofuels is causing enormous environmental and social damage, much more than we realised earlier. Precious ecosystems are being destroyed and hundreds of thousands of indigenous and peasant communities are being thrown off their land.

Worse lies ahead: the Indian government is committed to planting 14 million hectares of land with jatropha (an exotic bush from which biodiesel can be manufactured), the Inter-American Development Bank says that Brazil has 120 million hectares available for biofuels, and lobbyists in Europe are speaking of almost 400 million hectares being available for biofuels in 15 African countries. We are talking about expropriation on an unprecedented scale.

Worse lies ahead: the Indian government is committed to planting 14 million hectares of land with jatropha (an exotic bush from which biodiesel can be manufactured), the Inter-American Development Bank says that Brazil has 120 million hectares available for biofuels, and lobbyists in Europe are speaking of almost 400 million hectares being available for biofuels in 15 African countries. We are talking about expropriation on an unprecedented scale.

We believe that the prefix bio, which comes from the Greek word for 'life', is entirely inappropriate for such anti-life devastation. So, following the lead of non-governmental organisations and social movements in Latin America, we do not talk about biofuels and green energy. Agrofuels is a much better term, we believe, to express what is really happening: agribusiness producing fuel from plants as another commodity to in a wasteful, destructive and unjust global economy.

In a special issue of Seedling, launched today, we zoom in on the situation in different parts of the world: Latin America, Asia and Africa. We analyse what is happening and talk to the people involved. The conclusion is pretty much the same across the board: the push for agrofuels amounts to nothing less than the re-introduction and re-enforcement of the old colonial plantation economy, redesigned to function under the rules of the modern neoliberal, globalised world. Indigenous farming systems, local communities and the biodiversity they manage have to give way to provide for the increased fuel needs of the modern world.

One of the main justifications for the large-scale cultivation of agrofuels is the need to combat climate change, but the figures make a mockery of this claim. According to the US government, global energy consumption is set to increase 71 per cent from 2003 to 2030, and most of that will come from burning more oil, coal and natural gas. By the end of this period, all renewable energy (including agrofuels) will only make up 9 per cent of global energy consumption. It is a dangerous self-delusion to argue that agrofuels can play a significant role in combating global warming.

As is spelt out in this special edition, the wide-scale cultivation of agrofuels will actually make things worse in many parts of the world, notably South-east Asia and the Amazon basin where the drying of peat lands and the felling of tropical forest will release far more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than will be saved by using agrofuels.

One of the main causes of global warming is agro-industrial farming itself, and the global food system associated with it. Although it is scarcely ever mentioned, farming is responsible for 14 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions. Within farming, the largest single cause is the use of chemical fertilisers, which introduce a huge amount of nitrogen into the soil, and nitrous oxide into the air. Changing land use (mainly deforestation and thus linked to the expansion of crop monoculture) is responsible for another 18 per cent. And a large part of global transport, which is responsible for a further 14 per cent of emissions, stems from the way in which the agro-industrial complex moves large quantities of food from one continent to anther.

It is abundantly clear that we can only halt climate change by challenging the absurdity and the waste of the globalised food system as organised by the transnational corporations. Far from contributing to the solution, biofuels will only make a bad situation worse. GRAIN believes it is time to declare unambiguously 'No to the agrofuels craze!'

GRAIN's special issue of Seedling with over 30,000 words of in-depth analysis from around the world, plus other resources on agrofuels are available from this page:



SPECIAL ISSUE OF SEEDLING (JULY 2007)

Download the entire Seedling issue in PDF format, or you can download individual articles below. (Note: Articles are only currently available in PDF format - we hope to have HTML versions of these articles in mid-July).

SEEDLING EDITORIAL



INTRODUCTORY ARTICLE

An introductory article that, among other things, looks at the mind-boggling numbers that are being bandied around: the Indian government is talking of planting 14 million hectares of land with jatropha; the Inter-American Development Bank says that Brazil has 120 million hectares that could be cultivated with agrofuel crops; and an agrofuel lobby is speaking of 379 million hectares being available in 15 African countries.

CORPORATE POWER AND THE EXPANSION OF AGRIBUSINESS

A detailed look at the way agrofuels is restructuring agribusiness, with the emergence of new powerful corporate alliances across the globe. Agrofuels are deepening the alliances between transnational capital and local landed elites, with profound consequences for struggles over land and local food production.

AGROFUELS IN AFRICA

Foreign diplomats and businessmen are pouring in to secure reliable supply chains of agrofuels. Not only the old colonial powers but new emerging countries, particularly Brazil and China, are scouring the region for investment deals. There is talk of Southern Africa becoming 'the Middle East of agrofuels'. A report from Uganda where popular movements have forced the government to suspend two big agrofuel projects.

AGROFUELS IN ASIA

In no other region in the world is the absurdity of the frenzied rush into agrofuels more blatant than in South-east Asia, particularly in Indonesia and Malaysia. With funding under the terms of the Kyoto Protocol, peat lands are being destroyed (with the emission of billions of tonnes of carbon) to plant palms to produce oil for biodiesel. A report from Indonesia where the population is protesting over the surge in cooking oil prices because so much palm oil is being exported.

AGROFUELS IN LATIN AMERICA

A mosaic of interviews with leaders of social and popular movements, who analyse what is happening on their countries and describe their strategies for confronting agrofuels. A look at the emergence of large-scale biodiesel production in Latin America (particularly in the Amazon, where soya cultivation for the production of soya oil for biodiesel is intensifying forest destruction).

FURTHER READING

The volume of recent articles, papers and other materials on agrofuels can be overwhelming. Below we list some that we found particularly useful when preparing this Seedling.

[jimarilo] 29/6/2007 00:56

Northcote

Renova is a well established fuel grade ethanol production, marketing and distribution business which is currently focused on the Rocky Mountain Region of the US. Renova occupies a niche position in the Rocky Mountain Region and neighbouring states of the US for the supply and distribution of ethanol. There are no other production facilities in its target market and the nearest facility is some 200 miles to the east of Renova's production facility and up to 1,000 miles from Renova's target market. The Group's well established marketing and distribution infrastructure offers significant growth prospects in the Rocky Mountain Region of the US.

[phil0001] 28/6/2007 21:53

Great results and strong growth. I'm very happy to hold on here.

P1

[dasv] 28/6/2007 21:26

i realise that - i'm just mentioning why the USA has been anti-diesel with cars and pro-hybrid. Europe has a different attitude to diesel.

[tom89] 28/6/2007 18:55

dasv
The amount of these from burning diesel is not even a drop in the ocean compared to what is produced naturally.

[dasv] 28/6/2007 17:20

yes soot is unburnt hydrocarbons - i.e. particulates.

this is the main gripe the US has with diesel. In the UK people are less worried about unburnt hydrocarbon particulates, though belatedly, the london GLA is introducing limits on hydrocarbons on heavy goods vehicles in line with EU regulations.

[jimarilo] 28/6/2007 16:30

The research "Clearing the Air with Ethanol - a Review of the Real-World Impact from Fuels Blended with Ethanol" examined the actual, real-world use of ethanol-blended fuel in the Midwest, on the West Coast, and on the East Coast. Ethanol use in these areas reduced carbon monoxide, particulate matter, and ozone pollution.

[roverisback] 28/6/2007 16:20

minute soot particles