Faced with the twin threats of peak oil and climate change, many governments have turned for an answer to the apparent panacea of biofuels. Yet, increasingly, the progressive implementation of this solution demonstrates that the promise of biofuels as a replacement to fossil fuels is in fact a mirage that, if followed, risks leaving us short of power, short of food, destroying biodiversity and doing as much damage to the climate as ever. Worse still, these risks are being ignored.

In this definitive exposé, Mario Giampietro and Kozo Mayumi present exhaustive evidence for the case against large scale biofuel production from agricultural crops. The book begins by showing that the characteristics of agro-biofuels make them neither a viable nor a desirable alternative to fossil fuels. It then moves on to discuss a possibly more worrying issue. Even though agro-biofuels are well known, in the field of energy analysis, to be very low quality “energy sources”, the biofuel bandwagon rolls on relentlessly in Western governments. This apparent mystery can be explained by a lack of sound scientific analysis going beyond a simplistic economic reading, a (fatal) political attraction to the idea of biofuels as a ‘silver bullet’, and the continuing allure of a buoyed agricultural industry. In sum, this book will be vital, sobering reading for anyone concerned with energy or agricultural policy, or bioenergy as a complex system.

Table of Contents:

Introduction
Part I - Exploring the Nature of the Fallacy
The Quest for Energy: Lessons from the Past
For a Given Society, not Everything that Burns Represents a Fuel
Clarifying Basic Concepts of Energy Analysis
A Reality Check Based on the Metaphor of the Heart Transplant
The Blunder About Technical Progress in Agriculture and the Sustainable Development of Rural Areas
Part II - Where did we go wrong?
Ideological Lock-in
Academic Lock-in
Institutional Lock-in
Part III - Where do we go from here?
The Future of Bioenergy and Biofuels
Science for Sustainability: The Challenge
Glossary
Index