Biofuel's unintended consequences.

In a world hungry for fuel, biofuels have caught on as a promising and environmentally friendly alternative to petroleum fuels. Biofuels have powered Brazil since the 1980s and the Bush administration is counting on them to replace the gasoline that the president hopes to save with his plan to reduce gas usage by 20 percent over the next 10 years. And in Europe, government subsidies have enticed energy firms to begin using "sustainable" biofuels. According to reports in the New York Times, however, one European country found out that biofuels can be much worse for the environment than traditional petroleum products.

In the Netherlands, palm oil from Indonesia and Malaysia has become one of the most heavily used biofuels, with imports of the oil from both nations valued in billions of dollars. But a study by two organizations, Wetlands International and Delft Hydraulics, found that the palm-oil plantations in East Asia were environmental disasters. "It was shocking and totally smashed all the good reasons we initially went into palm oil," Wetlands spokesman Alex Kaat told the Times.

According to the Wetlands-Delft study, "The European Union implements all kind[s] of legislation for a large-scale use of biofuels. Export of palm oil to European countries is growing rapidly." To satisfy demand, heavily forested peat swamplands are being logged and drained in order to grow oil palms, the fruit of which is used as the source of the oil. The process often exacerbates the problem of wildfires. "These fires can last for weeks, sometimes even ...