There has been a lot of dicussion in the media recently about biofuels.  Many people, even U.N. officials, claim that producing biofuels is pushing up the cost of producing food and thus making it more difficult to fund projects in third-world countries.

The issue is so important, that my car dealer has sent out a newsletter to inform his bio-ethanol customers how he sees the situation.

He agrees that the price of basic foodstuffs has risen, but points out that the price of grain on the world markets is at the same level as it was in 1980.

The reason for this is apparently that during the 1990s the EU and the USA there was an overproduction of grain which, coupled with subsidies, led to the price dropping so much that it often cost more to transport a sack of grain that the contents of the sack itself were worth.

I remember at the end of the 1990s being involved in projects campaigning for the “fair pricing” of goods from third-world countries.  Farmers in those countries should have a fair chance to sell their produce on the world markets, but were being forced to sell at artificially low prices due to the subsidies of the wealthier countries.

The rising food prices are down to these policies, and not due to biofuel production, he claims.  Indeed, he continues by writing that less than 1% of the world biomass production goes towards making biofuels.  It is unlikely that such a small percentage could have such a large effect on food prices.

It is also worth noting, that European biofuels are made from sources such as sugar-beet - and mainly from extra-production or as a secondary product.

So I shall carry on filling up my car with bio-ethanol with a clear conscience.

Back in the 1990s I remember the Green Party in Germany promising to raise the price of petrol to 5DM per Litre (around 2,50EUR). This may have just been campaigning to make their point against fossil fuels, particularly at a time when they had not been confronted with the problem of actually running the Government.

I remember a comedian on the German version of “Have I Got News For You?” even accused them once of not keeping their campaign promises - because the price of petrol still hadn’t reached that point yet.

Ten years later and that promise may be about to come true. A petrol station in Devon recently charged almost 2GBP (about 2,44EUR) per litre for diesel! Even in Germany the price of diesel has now caught up with that of the normal 95-octane fuel.

Most petrol stations here are displaying only two prices: one price for 98-octane fuel, and one for everything else! It has now become much more expensive to drive anywhere on normal petrol or diesel than ever before. And yet I still don’t see many petrol stations here offering alternatives. I still don’t see better public transport, except for special events.

I’ve read recently about new high-speed train lines being considered in the UK, about new driver-less underground trains in Nuremberg and about towns in Germany introducing mandatory solar panels on building.

Is my part of Germany starting to fall behind?

Last month I wrote about how the price of bio-ethanol in Germany had gone up for the first time since I bought my bio-ethanol car, however it is still much cheaper than the prices at the petrol pumps last weekend: around 1,559EUR per litre!

Today those prices look set to rise even more, as the price of oil rises to $135 per barrel!

What is shocking is the fact that this is a 50% increase on the price that I was blogging about only half a year ago.

So where is it going to stop?  How long until we reach the 2EUR/litre price?