Interesting article on the farm lobby's concerns over the electrification of transport, including big trucks. Surprise! that change would adversely affect the market for biofuels, which are STILL predominantly made from crops.

https://www.fr8wav.es/?p=304699  via @freightwaves

Biofuels were initially pushed by the farm lobby, and some even saw the firming of crop prices resulting from the diversion of crops like corn (maize), soybeans, and canola (rapeseed) to ethanol and biodiesel as the policy that would enable progress on agriculture at the WTO.

I participated in a dialogue btwn OECD country delegates & ag-industry reps 13 years ago and challenged that assertion, asking whether any country's delegation had changed their official negotiating position as a result of the anticipated price effects of biofuels. None had.

There was a time, too, when environmental groups embraced biofuels. Most were quickly dissuaded of that notion as @IISD studies showed the high cost per avoided CO2 emissions, and others (e.g., @TSearchinger) pointed to the huge emissions from induced indirect land-use change.

But the power of the farm lobby--allied with the automobile manufacturing lobby (for which biofuels required no re-engineering)--is very strong, so even as most govts and environmental groups have turned towards electrification, the biofuel industry remains on life support, ..

... kept alive by the dream that 1st-gen biofuels made from crops will soon be displaced by 2nd-gen biofuels like cellulosic ethanol and biodiesel made from lipids such as oils extracted from micro algae. That was the promise in the mid-2000s and remains elusive.

I'll end with a graph from the the Agricultural Retailers Association's study, “Economic Impacts to U.S. Biofuels, Agriculture, and the Economy from Subsidized Electric Vehicle Penetration,” which shows the hit to U.S. domestic biofuel sales under different scenarios.