According to a secret World Bank report obtained by the Guardian biofuels have increased global food prices by up to 75%. The report dismisses the idea that droughts in Australia and rising demand from India and China has caused the rising food costs. The report instead claims that “the EU and US drive for biofuels has had by far the biggest impact on food supply and prices”.

“Political leaders seem intent on suppressing and ignoring the strong evidence that biofuels are a major factor in recent food price rises,” said Robert Bailey, policy adviser at Oxfam. “It is imperative that we have the full picture. While politicians concentrate on keeping industry lobbies happy, people in poor countries cannot afford enough to eat.”

Rising food prices have pushed 100m people worldwide below the poverty line, estimates the World Bank, and have sparked riots from Bangladesh to Egypt. Government ministers here have described higher food and fuel prices as “the first real economic crisis of globalisation”.

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If you didn’t think Brita’s plastic water bottle advertising campaign was disgusting this one surely is. The Swedish company Flygbussarna (shortly translated to The Flight Busses) wants to get the word out about their recent environmental efforts.

According to the company every third buss that goes to Arlanda (the largest airport in Sweden) is running on Rapeseed Methyl Ester (RME), which is a form of biodiesel. The biodiesel fuel is supposedly coming from fields near the airport.

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Shell, the major oil company, has decided to adopt algae for its diesel production. The company has already begun the construction of a pilot plant in Hawaii.

Growing algae as biofuel will not be taking valuable land areas that are needed to grow food on. Thanks to algaes impressive photosynthesis it will produce 15 times as much oil for a given area compared to other biofuel crops. Algae can also be fed CO2 directly from smokestacks.

So, has Shell finally seen the green light? Far from it actually.

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A new study by Kenneth Vogel from the University of Nebraska shows that farming switchgrass as biofuel will produce 540% more energy than is required to grow and manufacture it.

This can be compared to 25% for corn ethanol and 93% for soybean ethanol. But one of the more interesting and positive result from the study was that the emissions created by switchgrass would be around 94% lower than the emissions from petrol. That means switchgrass would be almost carbon neutral.

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