Farms.com Home   News

The Good And The Bad Of Biofuels

The Commission wants to promote less controversial biofuels.

Turning plants into fuel sounds exceptionally green — except some biofuels actually crimp food supplies and worsen greenhouse gas emissions.

Now the European Commission is trying to figure out how to make biofuels into part of its broader goal of slashing the amount of carbon emitted by road transport — ideas spelled out in its strategy due to be released Wednesday.

Low-emissions alternative fuels are one of the three decarbonization pillars laid out in a draft of the strategy leaked last week, but the definition for these alternatives is still open.

The most controversial are so-called first generation biofuels — the process of making alcohol out of food crops, a technology used for millennia to make beer and wine. The Commission says these have a  “limited” role and should not get any public support after 2020. Instead, it wants to promote technologically trickier but potentially greener second-generation biofuels made out of wood and crop waste.

“The general movement is going towards second-generation biofuels,” Miguel Arias Cañete, the climate action and energy commissioner, told POLITICO. “Many people made investments in first generation biofuels and you cannot make them disappear from Day One. That’s why we call for a gradual phase out.”

The EU’s transport still depends on oil for 94 percent of its fuel, making it one of the toughest areas to wean off fossil fuels. Nuclear, solar, wind, hydro and other emissions-free sources already produce more than 40 percent of the bloc’s electricity, and biomass, solar and other clean technologies make up 16 percent of heating and cooling.

But whether biofuels are the transport industry’s cure-all depends on who you ask.

“Biofuels have arguably been scapegoated for causing increases in food prices in the past,” said James Palmer, a researcher at the Transport Studies Unit at Oxford University. “They certainly do have an effect, but establishing the extent of this is incredibly complicated, as there are so many other factors involved.”

It all boils down to whether energy produced from organic material, like corn, sugar or vegetable oil, is carbon-neutral or not. Plants absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, making them a crucial tool for curbing global warming. They then emit that CO2 when they’re burned for fuel.

The industry argues emissions from plants don’t count, because the carbon was already in the atmosphere and will be sucked back in by new crops.

“It’s actually frustrating, because the answer to decarbonization is staring us in the face,” said Dick Roche, a consultant for the Irish company Ethanol Europe and Ireland’s former environment minister.

Critics counter that even if new plants eventually do re-absorb the CO2, the world needs to cut emissions as soon as possible in order to limit global warming. The emissions released from developing new land (known as indirect land use change), further blunt any benefits from biofuels, they say.

Meanwhile, diverting land for biofuels can cut into food supplies and push prices up, just as demand for food is expected to rise by 70 percent by 2050, said Timothy Searchinger, a professor at Princeton University and senior fellow at the World Resources Institute who favors electric cars over biofuels.

“Land, particularly productive land, is extremely valuable for everything it normally does, and even more valuable because we need about 70 percent more of virtually everything,” he said. “And yet, for energy it’s an unbelievably inefficient and poor use, where we have alternatives that are just overwhelmingly more efficient.”

Climate for food?

The industry disputes claims that farming for biofuels leads to higher food prices, arguing that it was oil price changes that caused food price spikes in the 1970s and in 2007-2008.

“Phasing out conventional biofuels would be irresponsible,” Raffaello Garofalo, secretary general of the European Biodiesel Board, said in response to the Commission’s draft strategy last week. “The disbandment of the existing industry would negatively impact rural development, the food and feed outlets, and lead to a halt in investments in advanced biofuels.”

Eric Sievers, director of investments at Ethanol Europe, argues the reason people starve isn’t because too little food is produced, but because of floods, droughts, poverty and other factors. Demand for ethanol simply gives farmers even more incentive to boost their output — and helps their bottom line.

“In Europe, farmland is not expanding, it’s contracting. So biofuel policy and bioenergy can help stop what they’re doing right now, which is abandoning their land and setting their kids up to be accountants in cities,” he said.

Others still don’t buy it.

Searchinger sees two big problems with biofuels. First, plants can store carbon over many years, which means burning them for fuel could release just as much greenhouse gases as coal, oil and gas, if not more. That could eventually be re-absorbed, but over a very long time. Second, biofuels and food will inevitably compete.

“If you increase demand, and if you don’t increase production, basically the shelves just get emptier and emptier,” he said. “The only reason a farmer produces more food when somebody else diverts crops is that the prices go up.”

Over-eager regulations

The European Union put its weight behind biofuels back in 2003, when it introduced tax incentives and subsidies aimed at driving down CO2 emissions in the transport sector — a policy that is now widely panned as a mistake, both inside and outside the Commission.

A damning report came out a few years later arguing indirect land use changes tied to biofuels caused higher emissions, and that activities like clearing grassland and forests could negate any cuts in greenhouse gases.

The findings showed the EU may have been over-eager in its support for these first generation biofuels. “There was little scientific evidence available in 2003 that supported the claim that a European biofuels target would be guaranteed to bring down greenhouse gas emissions,” said Palmer.

The EU responded by setting a 7 percent cap on conventional biofuels last year, and encouraging countries to promote advanced biofuels by setting national targets.

Click here to see more...

Trending Video

Cover Crop Selection

Video: Cover Crop Selection

This is the second of 11 training modules on cover crop selection, management, economics, and related topics. Each module will be presented by MCCC specialists and consists of a PowerPoint slide set with accompanying instructor notes for each slide. The slide set is posted to midwestcovercrops.org