Biofuel (or Biorganic Fuel) is what it sounds like: fuel derived from organic material. The biofuel you’re probably most familiar with is Ethanol. Ethanol is alcohol (though probably not something you’d care to drink) often derived from corn, though it can be made from many things. Ethanol has a lot of benefits, including the fact that it burns cleaner and is a renewable resource. Since it comes from plants like corn and sugar cane, and the plants absorb the Carbon Dioxide let off by burning the fuel, it creates a cycle of cleaner fuel production. Seems great, no? The US government has certainly hopped aboard this bandwagon, increasing the amount of biofuel that must be mixed into gasoline (via the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and the Energy and Security Act of 2007), and subsidizing farmers to raise the crops necessary for this (read: corn and soybeans).

Only, there’s a catch. In fact, there are few:

Food Shortages: “when we divert our corn or soybeans to fuel, if people around the world are going to continue to eat the same amount that they’re already eating, you have to replace that food somewhere else,” (Study: Ethanol Worse for Climate Than Gasoline ). Thus, thanks to good ‘ol supply and demand, food prices have increased–not just because of biofuels, but it is certainly a factor. This maybe isn’t a big deal for your average American, but sure hurts the people of Nigeria. Going hand in hand with that is the fact that in some countries farmers are participating in slash and burn practices to create more land to grow crops for biofuel. It is believed that this could release twice as much carbon dioxide as gasoline usage over the next 30 years.

Higher energy cost to create biofuel than what you get out of it: This one is controversial, but some scientists believe that between the fuel to run farm equipment, ship the crops, fertilize, and farm in general, that some kinds of biofuel, especially corn, are energy inefficient.

Not cost effective: Ethanol from corn is relatively cheap because it’s subsidized. The problem with subsidies is a whole ‘nother one, but it is pretty well recognized (if arguable) that it does nothing for crop diversity or allowing developing countries to create competitive farming industries. Not to mention, that’s letting our energy future rest in the hands of the American farm lobby.

Weather: It’s tricky. If we become reliant on biofuel and we have a bad drought, we’re in trouble. Then we’d have both a food AND fuel shortage, a veritable double whammy of disaster.

So what’s a good eco-citizen to do? Well, there are some alternatives. One is to use switchgrass instead of corn. Switchgrass grows well just about anywhere, even on land that’s been exhausted by other crops. It has multiple uses as animal feed, biofuel, or ground cover to stop erosion. And, since humans can’t eat it, it’s not so bad for the food production problem as corn. Another interesting idea is to use trash to create ethanol. And of course, there’s always solar and wind energy.

So basically, Biofuel is an interesting avenue to explore, but really requires further research before we make it the backbone of American energy independence and promote it as an environmentally sustainable fuel.