January 26, 2007
From Guardian (UK).
The urgent need for action to avoid the worst effects of climate change is leading to an ever wider range of proposed solutions. Some are potentially problematic, however. In seeking to solve one environmental problem, we could make others worse.
This week President Bush announced plans to reduce dependence on imported petrol through a dramatic increase in biofuel production. This particular option is politically attractive because it can be presented as a means for us all to have our carbon cake and eat it. Instead of changing our driving habits, we can simply change the fuel source, or so it is implied.
"Biofuel" is the term used to describe a range of plant-based alternatives to diesel and petrol. The yellow-flowered oil seed rape that we grow in the UK is one source - in that case for biodiesel. Others include sugar cane (to make ethanol, a petrol alternative), soya and oil palm.
Biofuels can contribute an environmental benefit in the form of reduced overall carbon dioxide emissions from transport. This is because when plants grow they take carbon dioxide from the air. Burning fuel from the plants in engines is thus a temporary contribution, but only so long as new crops are planted to take the same amount of carbon dioxide out of the air again. So far so good: but there are big problems.
Biofuel cultivation needs land - lots of it - and demand for land for fuel production can place pressure on land that is important for conservation. In Brazil, the cultivation of sugar cane to make ethanol has led to large-scale forest loss. The rapid recent expansion of soya production for food (and animal feed) is already causing high levels of forest loss and if soya is additionally grown to make biofuel then the devastating changes in land use that have taken place in recent years could actually accelerate - in order to make what some would present as "green" fuel.
In Indonesia and Malaysia there has similarly been a major expansion in the planting of oil palms, both to provide a source of cheap fat for the food industry and increasingly as a source of fuel for vehicles. The spread of palm-oil plantations has not only been responsible for massive environmental destruction, but has also led to serious social impacts, including conflicts over land and the abuse of workers.
Then there are questions linked to the energy used in the cultivation, processing and distribution of biofuels. Fossil energy is used in agricultural machinery, and in converting crops into fuel. There is also a major fossil-energy input in the production of fertilisers and pesticides used to grow the biofuels. All this leads to carbon dioxide emissions. So does transporting biofuel to market. If biofuels are transported around the world, and made with fossil energy, then their overall environmental benefit will be considerably reduced. If they are also cultivated at the expense of ancient rainforests, then the climate-change impact might be actually worse than using petrol or diesel.
If we are to reap benefits from biofuels, we need some environmental safeguards, such as protection for important ecosystems, and regulation of production methods and the energy used in manufacturing and distribution. It seems to me that a certification scheme is needed so that companies such as BP and Shell, who will be selling this stuff, could show what level of environmental benefit (if any) is actually being achieved, both in terms of land use and savings in carbon dioxide emissions.
Even if we do end up with an effective certification scheme, the emphasis must remain firmly on greener motoring based on efficiency first, and on alternative fuels second. Filling up a huge Range Rover with 5.7% biofuel (which is the target the EU has set and which is now being implemented in the UK) can hardly be seen as a sound environmental choice when there are cars that are more than twice as efficient than these gas guzzling monsters.
By all means let's have 5.7% and upwards of environmentally sound biofuel, but let's make sure we are doing all we can to use it in really efficient engines. At Friends of the Earth we believe a good start would be for the EU to put in place some legally binding fuel efficiency standards on vehicle manufacturers who have so far failed to rise to the challenge. President Bush might like to do the same, and to encourage his country's citizens to use their cars less.
Read the article.
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1 comment:
As a feedstock, sustainable palm oil is better for biofuel than any other oil. This may interest you, www.palmoiltruthfoundation.com.
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