Biofuel
From Envirowiki
Biofuels are processed combustible fuels that are usually used in similar situations to fossil fuels - oil and gas products. Biofuels come from plant matter, and hence can be produced without adding carbon to the biosphere. However, biofuels currently produced are not without serious problems, including land degradation, and infringements on workers rights.
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[edit] 1 Types of Biofuels
Biofuels include:
- Ethanol, commonly produced from corn, but able to be produced from other sources such as sugar.
- Biodiesel, which can be produced from any vegetable oil, but most commmonly and problematically from palm oil.
- Biogas (methane), which can be produced from any organic matter, and is currently often produced as a by-product from industries such as sugar cane farming.
Broadly speaking, there are three main stages in biofuel production. The first stage is the growing of the crop (soy-beans, rapeseed (canola), sugar-cane, palm-oil etc.), the second stage is the distillation process, and the third stage is combustion.
[edit] 2 Problems with Biofuels
Biofuels mostly cause problems at the supply end of the commodity chain. Palm oil biodiesel is sold as a greener alternative to fossil diesel or petrol, but it is often produced in south-east asia on land that is cleared of rainforests for plantations. Not only does this create local problems with water purity, and monoculture problems, but in clearing the rainforests, more carbon is added to the atmosphere than is saved by using biofuels instead of fossil fuels at the end of the chain, basically a kind of greenwashing.
[edit] 3 Environmental/Greenhouse Impacts of Biofuels
When biofuels are analysed from a Life Cycle Analysis perspective, and all of these three stages of production are taken into consideration, the environmental and greenhouse impacts of biofuel production become much more apparent [1].
According to an OECD report “biofuels can have a positive environmental impact relative to gasoline, or a negative one, depending on how the fuel is produced or grown, processed, and then used [1].
For example, greenhouse emissions from corn-based ethanol are generally worse than those from gasoline if the ethanol is distilled in a coal fired facility. However, when corn-based ethanol is distilled using renewable energy, the total greenhouse emissions are generally significantly less than gasoline – unless the corn plantation displaced a forest or wetland[1].
Often the indirect impacts of biofuel production are much larger than the direct impacts. For example, because of the limited amount of arable agricultural land available, natural habitats such as wetlands, savannahs, and rainforests are often destroyed to make way for large plantations of crops to be used for biofuel production. Deforestation to make way for biofuel-crop plantations not only releases greenhouse gases, but also limits the capacity of the earth to absorb future increasing carbon dioxide emissions [2].
In addition, maximising yields of crops grown for biofuels often requires “significant levels of fossil fuel inputs” - a further argument against biofuels (Kammen, 2007: 3). Furthermore, the environmental impacts of “exploiting marginal land”, which is already under stress, and which is often vital for poorer communities is often significant and can result in greenhouse emissions larger than those “from an equal amount of fossil fuels”[1]..
Biodiesel from palm oil is probably the worst in terms of environmental impacts and greenhouse emissions. According to Wilson “A single tonne of refined oil generates 33 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions – 10 times more than petroleum”[2].
[edit] 4 Equity Issues Associated with Biofuel Production
By looking at all the different stages of the biofuel production process, and seeing the indirect impacts, it seems almost impossible for biofuels to be pursued by the Global North-at least on the scale that is being aimed for by the US government – without it having seriously dire consequences for many people in the Global South.
Using fertile farm-land to grow crops for biofuel production is already 'pinching',the global food supply and “corn prices alone have doubled since 2005” (Wilson, 2007: 2). This rise in food prices has triggered protests all around the world – from Mexico to Africa and the Carribean, and hunger is “approaching crisis stage in parts of Asia” [3].
“We feel that the developed countries should seriously rethink the whole issue of biofuel, particularly the biofuel subsidies...giving subsidies for biofuels basically acts as an implicit tax for staple foods”[3].
Rabobank, the world's leading bank for food and agribusiness, has estimated that in order to supply 10 percent of global energy demand, we would need to plant “one third of all the world's farmland with corn...ninety-one percent of all available land with rapeseed oil...and an impossible two hundred percent with soy beans” [2].
When looking at biofuels from an equity perspective, it is also interesting to notice who will be the main beneficiaries of the rise in biofuel production. These will be the “giants of agribusiness” and the “world's leading gas groups”- companies such as Cargill (US), the Louis Dreyfus Group (France) and COFCO (China) and also Shell, ExxonMobil and BP [2].. CLSA (a brokerage firm in Hong Kong) has predicted that by 2020 “the global biofuels market [will] be worth 75 billion (pounds sterling) a year”[2].
From whichever way it is approached, the underlying fact is hard to ignore; wherever biofuel crops are planted they will displace food crops (or natural habitat such as rainforest or wetlands). It is also extremely likely that, if less food is produced, it will be the poor who have to go without.
This is indeed what is already happening – as staple food prices rapidly increase, it is the poor who are being hit the hardest. Due to the massive increase in ethanol production from american corn, prices of basic corn-based ingredients of south american staples, such as tortilla have risen dramatically, giving rise to protests, and finally to the Mexican government putting a cap on the price of tortillas.
Biofuels are fraught with many issues, which are able to be, in part revealed through Life Cycle Analysis. There is no hard and fast equations that calculate the total greenhouse emissions from biofuels becasue varying biofuel pathways have varying greenhouse impacts. What is clear, however, is that the indirect environmental impacts of biofuels are often much higher than the direct impacts – and that the issue is much more complicated - in terms of social and environmental impacts - than first appears.
[edit] 5 See Also
[edit] 6 References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Kammen M. D. et. al. (2007) Energy and Greenhouse Impacts of Biofuels: A Framework for Analysis, OECD Research Round table, September
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Wilson, E. (2007) “Find Another Planet and Plant it with Soy beans: Elliot Wilson says there isn't enough arable land in the world to make plant-based fuels a viable alternative to oil”, The Spectator, Available: <http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/business/223871/find-another-planet-and-plant-it-with-soybeans.thtml> (10/05/08)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Wong, G. (2008) Asian Development Bank: Biofuels making food more expensive, Associated Press News Service, April 21
