Vēl viens raksts par energokultūru priekšrocībām kurināmā ražošanā, salīdzinot ar tradicionālajām lauksaimniecības kultūrām

"THE use of corn crops to produce ethanol fuel for cars has been dismissed as inefficient by one of the world's leading climate change scientists.

President Bush believes it is the answer to the US's dependency on oil and Gordon Brown aims to encourage the use of ethanol in his pre-Budget report by reducing tax on UK-blended biofuels from 53p a litre to just 8p.

But Sir John Houghton, who chairs the Scientific Assessment Working Group of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said the crops need too much fertiliser to grow well.

"You need to put so much fertiliser in to get a good crop and you need to burn fuel to sow it, spray it and harvest it and the amount you get out in the end is very small indeed," he said.

"We have to look at crops where the inputs are small."

Sir John believes elephant grass, or miscanthus, is a viable alternative.

"It does not need lots of fertiliser and does not need the best land and you can use it in relatively small power stations or mixed with coal," said Sir John.

"But there needs to be quite a lot of work done before it can be a source of viable biofuel."

Sir John said extensive work on miscanthus was underway at the Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research (Iger).

"The way you process elephant grass needs to be changed but that will happen," he said.

Sir John told the Oxford Farming Conference last month that Britain could meet 3% of its energy needs if farmers grew one million hectares of miscanthus, the equivalent of 9% of the UK land mass. Short-rotation coppice willow was also appropriate.

"I think there's a good opportunity for Wales to grow eco crops like these," he said.

"But we need places to use them that are not too far away because biomass is bulky and transport costs can be large and heavy on fuel consumption, which defeats the purpose."

Sir John said Aberthaw power station planned to use biomass for 7% of its fuel.

Sir John, former head of the Met Office and currently Honorary Scientist of the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research, spoke to Country & Farming at Narberth last week before addressing a packed public meeting of more than 250 people.

Along with opportunities for Welsh farmers, Sir John said tourist operators could also benefit from climate change.

"Rhodri Morgan was right about getting ready for tourists and it's a good idea," he said.

"Presuming nothing dramatic happens, we will have warmer and wetter winters and warmer summers.

"People won't want to go to the Mediterranean or other warm parts of the world because it will be too hot and dry and water supplies will be threatened by lack of rainfall."

He pointed out that the European heatwave of 2003 killed 30,000 people.

"I'm not hyping it - it's what has happened already," he said.

"Thousands of people died in India the same year because the temperature in Andhra Pradesh reached 47C - 125F - on seven consecutive days.

"We have only seen a small rise in global temperatures so far but we are going to see millions of environmental refugees - and where will they go in our crowded world?"

Sir John said he was frustrated at the lack of action from the UK Government.

Margaret Thatcher had been one of the first to warn of climate change in a speech to the annual dinner of the Royal Society in 1988 but, 20 years on, there was more talk than anything else.

"The only reason we kept our carbon dioxide emissions in 2000 down to 1990 levels was because we gave up all the coal power stations," he said.

"Compared with a lot of other countries in Europe, the UK is near the bottom of the list."

In Upper Austria, for instance, he said 14% of the energy for a population of 1.5 million came from local biomass in 2003 and this was planned to increase to 30% by 2010 and to continue to grow.

By contrast, the UK raises only about 1% of its energy this way, although Sir John said it would be possible to raise this to around 10% by 2050 with use of lower grade land, amounting to about 25% of the UK's total farmland.

Leading scientist
Sir John Houghton is one of the world's leading climate change scientists.

Born in Dyserth, he was head of the Met Office from 1983 to 1991 and lives in Aberdyfi.

Last year, he received the annual Japan Award for Science from the Emperor of Japan during a week-long celebration in Tokyo.

Sir John, who described climate change as "a weapon of mass destruction", said tidal energy was also the answer for an island with some of the biggest tides in the world.

"We should get on with that because we could get 20% of our electricity from tidal energy," he said.

"Wind is not the only solution and it's not the top solution and we don't want to cover our landscape with wind farms.

"And with tidal power you know when it's going to come and, unlike wind, it's very reliable.

"But the Government has not seemed very interested in tidal, for reasons that I don't understand.""

Oriģināls