The Government of Quebec has decided it will not allow any more biofuel plants to be built on its territory, according to Francois Cardinal, writing in La Presse. The ban is coming into force because the government of Quebec does not believe that corn ethanol is environmentally beneficial. Zut alors!
Thanks to trusty Babelfish we can get a glimpse of what the thinking behind it could have been...mostly its environmental.
The experts speak about an impoverishment of the soil aimed by the intensive culture, contamination of the rivers, the use on a large scale of weedkillers, insecticides and manure, the rise in the price of the foodstuffs and even of the reduction of the surpluses of corn usually sent to the countries in the need.He adds
But there still, the benefit of ethanol would not be as large as claims it the Charest government. Sunday, in a letter published in the Press, the Beauchamp minister supported that the introduction of 5 % of ethanol into the gasoline sold in Quebec, obligatory from here 2012, will make it possible "to reduce by 780 000 tons per year the gas emissions for purpose of greenhouse".However the director of the division of research on the toxic emissions of Environment Canada, Greg Rideout, question this kind of assertions. Last spring, network CBC revealed the conclusions of one of its studies: there is no difference between the emissions produced by a car which runs with regular gas or fuel containing 10 % of ethanol.
It is interesting to see a regional government cutting corn ethanol for environmental reasons. Is this a straw in the wind?
Thanks to biofuelwatch for the tipoff