Dominic Murphy looks at the green fuel options | Travel and transport | Guardian Unlimited Environment

Dominic Murphy looks at the green fuel options

Bioethanol
A biofuel made from fermenting plants, typically sugar beet and sugar cane, but many other crops can be used, including wheat and grains which will grow easily in this country.
Eco lowdown: You're still producing carbon dioxide in your exhaust gases, but this is CO2 absorbed by the plant during its lifetime, so in theory you're not increasing net emissions. Bioethanol fans include George Bush, who sees a switch to this fuel as one way to cut US greenhouse gases. But the figures are highly controversial. The Soil Association argues that providing sufficient quantities of biofuels for our needs will require intensive production of wheat and grains, and that means using nitrogen-based fertilisers, the manufacture of which produces high quantities of CO2. And palm oil for the European biofuel market is now the main cause of deforestation in Indonesia, with predicted dire consequences for climate change and biodiversity; one report has claimed that 33 tonnes of CO2 is produced for every tonne of palm oil produced from rainforest that has been cleared by burning - 10 times as much as petrol produces. On the other hand, a 2004 study from the EU's Joint Research Centre suggested that savings of 20-40% CO2 could still be expected from bioethanol.