Biofuels: A Controversial Option

Biofuels are solids, liquids or gases produced from living organisms or from metabolic by-products containing over 80% of renewable materials. They are considered neutral in terms of carbon dioxide emissions because these are balanced by the CO₂ absorbed by the plants grown to produce them. There are different types of biofuels and various sources to obtain them:

• Bioethanol and biobuthanol are alcohols produced by the fermentation of sugar and starch crops from plants; bioodiesel instead is made from vegetable oils and animal fats. They are usually used as a gasoline additive to increase octane and reduce vehicle toxic emissions.

• Biogas is a mixture of methane and carbon dioxide produced by the anaerobic decomposition of sewage and municipal wastes by bacteria and used in the generation of hot water and electricity.

• Solid biofuels can be wood, sawdust, grass cuttings, charcoal, agricultural waste and dried manure.

• Microalgae and macroalgae (seaweeds) and even fungi can also provide biofuel through oil extraction.

The ongoing debate is intense. If these biofuels are good, because burning them does not produce net carbon emissions, why do they cause such concern? Ultimately, it depends how we use them. Vast oil palm plantations, especially in Indonesia and Malaysia, are deemed to cause more impacts in terms of deforestation of native trees, threats to endangered species because of the emissions of CO₂ and methane from the soil and large fires. Accurate estimates of the cost-benefit ratio for the environment are then needed, particularly for large plantations.

The production of starch-based ethanol from maize can have a negative impact on water quality, because of higher nitrogen fertilisation required¹. Furthermore, vast areas are needed to grow corn (and other common crops like potato and sugar cane) – this clashes with the astounding lack of food for billions of people in developing countries.

There are, however, promising developments. Biofuels, such as algae, produce up to 30 times more energy per acre than land crops, such as soybeans². Algae, (Botryococcus braunii and Chlorella vulgaris), are relatively easy to grow; the challenge is that the oil is hard to extract from algal cells and commercial applications will need time to be developed³. More traditionally, biogas is very good at generating heat and electricity from waste and is widely used to avoid losing energy in dangerous and expensive landfills.

It is up to every country and the UN to create and apply rules for the use of different types of biofuels and even to discard ones in evident conflict with food production. Local populations can seek the implementation of sustainable biofuel production schemes with autochthonous plants, rather than imported ones. The “parachuting” of massive plantations to cut CO₂ while altering tropical ecosystems is being harshly opposed by environmentalists to protect forests and indigenous people’s rights, but biofuels are sometimes wrongly demonised tout court. Common sense should help decision-makers avoid competition between food and energy crops, using the viable options to produce energy from biomass and, most importantly, investing in research and development on the best ones.

Also see Morrow Gaines Campbell, a climate specialist with Brazil’s Vitae Civilis, speaking to Climate-Change.tv from the AWG meetings in Barcelona, 2009.

Written by Luca Marazzi on behalf of Responding To Climate Change

1. http://www.wri.org/project/biofuels
2. http://www.washingtonpost.com (Sunday, January 6, 2008)
3. The first car fuelled by algae has been already launched in San Francisco last year. http://cleantechnica.com/2009/09/11/the-first-algae-fueled-car-travels-from-san-francisco-to-washington-dc/

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