What is biofuel, ethanol, and droughts?

Question

What is biofuel, ethanol, droughts, and high price of what? and How is it effecting the food crisis?

Answer 1

Hi:

Biofuel is any fuel that is made from biomass, which include bio-diesel, corn ethanol, cellulosic ethanol, etc.  

The current debate is that food prices are being pushed up because part of the supply, in particular, corn, is being diverted to make ethanol.  There are some truths to this.

The solution is to use "non-food" biomass, like wood, or straw, or agricultural wastes like corn stalk, etc. to produce biofuel.  There are many companies that are trying to do this, but so far, none of them have achieved large commercial production yet.  This is because it is a lot easier to make ethanol out of sugar or starch than out of cellulosic materials.

The real shame in this is the impact on the poor countries.  These people already have so little of disposal income that price increases in staples like rice or wheat mean they will have to eat less.  A sad situation for a world that is so full of technical wonders and relative abundances.