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Joe's Cafe

• Discreet or discrete?
• Some seek knowledge
• I shall not pass this way again

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Best Holiday
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Are you a high-intermediate or advanced learner of English? Do you need to improve your writing skills? ESL Bee offers writing tips and lessons for non-
native English speakers who are required to write academic essays. Site creator Erlyn Baack provides users with tips on writing various types of essays
including cause-effect and compare-contrast, which are often required on standardized tests such as the TOEFL iBT. The grammar tips and quizzes are
categorized in a simple format, and are designed to help you achieve top scores. After each session use the Send a Postcard feature to share your
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Are biofuels the answer to the energy question?

Where do biofuels come from?

Allegedly the fuels of the future and a green alternative to traditional fossil fuels, biofuels are made from plants such as sugar cane and maize (or corn) and oil-rich plants like palms and soya beans. They can be used on their own or mixed with conventional fuels such as petrol.

What are the advantages of biofuels?

Biofuels have been hailed as the environmentally-friendly answer to the energy crisis because it is said that they are much 'greener' than the fuels we have been burning to produce energy in recent history. For example, coal and petrol. Biofuels are alleged to be carbon-neutral which means that the quantity of carbon dioxide they produce when burnt to produce energy is only equal to, and not greater than, the amount of CO2 they use up while growing. So their carbon-footprint is exemplary. Traditional fossil fuels, on the other hand, produce a lot of carbon dioxide during combustion and so leave a very large carbon-footprint, polluting the atmosphere. Some say that a quarter of global greenhouse emissions can be blamed on transport exhaust fumes.

What are the disadvantages of biofuels?

There is a school of scientific thought which states that biofuels are not as green as we think. It has been pointed out that in farming these bio-fuel-producing plants tractors are needed to plough the fields and harvest the crops; chemical fertilizers, insecticides and pesticides etc. need to be applied to the plants and, once harvested, the crops need to be processed in factories before the end product can be distributed by transporting it to the customer. Some people go as far as to say that certain biofuels require more energy to be produced than they are capable of producing!

Another disadvantage, according to some, is that huge tracts of land are needed to produce the crops for biofuels. This can threaten the amount of land available for food production. If there is less land being cultivated for food purposes then the price of food itself may be affected. Food prices may rise.

Summary

In theory it isn't so strange to entertain the idea of cars running on plant or animal oil. It is perhaps surprising to discover that motor-car pioneers like Henry Ford actually designed cars which could run on fuel made from plants. In fact the only reason they didn't take off was apparently because the oil available from the Middle East was much cheaper in those days than the bio-alternative! Nowadays, however, the situation has altered and 'driven' engineers in the motor industry to research the bio-alternatives once more in search of the answer to the fuel question: what can we use instead of fossil fuels?
--
Each month we have a new Talking Point and invite your views and opinions. Just follow the link below to say what you think.

This month's Talking Point is:

"Biofuels are the answer to the energy question. Do YOU agree?"

Say what YOU think...

Everybody said it was a great party. I wish that

a) I have gone
b) I had gone
c) I had went

See end of newsletter for answer

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Blogs for Your Students:
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eslblogs.englishclub.com

Blogs for Teachers:
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