ue – Bibliografía Pospetróleo

RSPB; ActionAid; Friends of the Earth; Greenpeace (2010): Driving to Destruction

November 2010.

Disponible en: https://web.archive.org/web/20111214052758/http://www.foeeurope.org/agrofuels/ILUC_briefing_November2010.pdf

National plans for energy and transport show Europe is set to increase significantly biofuel use. By 2020, biofuels will provide 9.5% of total energy in transport; 92% of these fuels will come from food crops (such as oil seeds, palm oil, sugar cane, sugar beet, wheat).

This will require an expansion of cultivated agricultural land globally, converting forests, grasslands and peat lands into crop fields. Up to 69 000 km2 will be affected – an area over twice the size of Belgium.

Total net GHG emissions from biofuels could be as much as 56 million tonnes of extra CO2 per year, the equivalent of an extra 12 to 26 million cars on Europe’s roads by 2020. This means that instead of being 35 to 50% less polluting than fossil fuels (as required by the Renewable Energy Directive (RED)), once land use impacts are included, the extra biofuels that will come to the EU market will be on average 81% to 167% worse for the climate than fossil fuels.

Genero: Informes y estudios
Subjects: agricultura, agrocombustibles, cambio climático, co2, combustibles, ecología, emisiones de GEI, energías alternativas, english, impactos medioambientales, política energética, políticas públicas, previsiones, transporte, ue, uso de la tierra

CLARK, WILLIAM R. (2005): Petrodollar Warfare: Oil, Iraq and the Future of the Dollar

The invasion of Iraq may well be remembered as the first oil currency war. Far from being a response to 9/11 terrorism or Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction, Petrodollar Warfare argues that the invasion was precipitated by two converging phenomena: the imminent peak in global oil production and the ascendance of the euro currency.

Energy analysts agree that world oil supplies are about to peak, after which there will be a steady decline in supplies of oil. Iraq, possessing the world’s second-largest oil reserves, was therefore already a target of US geostrategic interests. Together with the fact that Iraq had switched to paying for oil in euros—rather than US dollars—the Bush administration’s unreported aim was to prevent further OPEC momentum in favor of the euro as an alternative oil transaction currency standard.

Meticulously researched, Petrodollar Warfare examines US dollar hegemony and the unsustainable macroeconomics of ‘petrodollar recycling,’ pointing out that the issues underlying the Iraq war also apply to geostrategic tensions between the United States and other countries, including the member states of the European Union, Iran, Venezuela and Russia. The author warns that without changing course, the American experiment will end the way all empires end—with military overextension and subsequent economic decline. He recommends the multilateral pursuit of both energy and monetary reforms within a UN framework to create a more balanced global energy and monetary system—thereby reducing the possibility of future oil and oil currency-related warfare.

William R. Clark is manager of performance improvement at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His research on oil depletion, oil currency issues and US geostrategy received a 2003 Project Censored Award and was published in Censored 2004. He lives in Columbia, Maryland.