The questions must be why biofuels and which kind? The long awaited hydrogen fuel cell car seems as distant as ever and battery cars are best suited to inner city hops. Liquid fuel has high energy density, does not require extraordinary containment measures and runs in piston engines that are relatively cheap and reliable. Third world farmers will need energy dense fuel to run cultivators and jitneys to take produce to market.

I think the answer must be that less developed countries use biomethane and jatropha biodiesel for themselves, not for export. Wealthier countries should electrify transport as much as possible and use second generation biofuels to fill the remaining gap. Currently these fuels have huge capital costs and technical glitches but they can use non-food biomass such as straw, sawdust and garbage.

I agree that wealthy countries should not be subsidising grain ethanol or importing unsustainable palm oil to drive their Mercs and Beemers. They must change their requirements to ensure that the biofuel technology is appropriate. And carbon tax the hell out of coal-to-liquids with double the well-to-wheel emissions of current petrofuels.

The article is pretty much on the ball – biofuels as a panacea have whiskers on them. But worthwhile elements do exist.

CSIRO workers were conducting an interesting project until support for it was discontinued – insufficient return on financial investment within required time frame.

The project embraced three concerns:
Remediation of degraded landscapes.
Creation of employment in rural communities
Production of methanol (with mainly transport in mind) in a truly carbon-neutral process.

Biofuels, as a stand-alone issue, continues to get attention. Interesting is a quote regarding the difficulty of using some biodiesel in cold weather – that processed from animal fats and some vegetable oils. Some liquids are transformed to wax. (Try cleaning the windscreen with Eucalyptus oil, and then driving in frosty evenings). Most interesting is attempts by the biofuels industry to have standards for fuel lowered to accommodate this. Will political lobbying prevail over technology?

the best short term measure is to stop riding in cars. a lot of transportation could be walking, bicycling, motorscooters, electric buggies, and good old public transport.

telling the public this is career suicide for politicians.

scientists can say it, without legal force. fossil energy corporations will stall, obfuscate, and bribe pollies.

a nation with citizen initiative can breakthrough this and get big things done. too bad that's not us.

This article is excellent and shows just how far out of touch people like Mark Vaille are. From various sources I have roughly converted world consumption of fossil fuels and production of grains and sugars to billions of tonnes of coal equivalents per annum. The human race consumes about 8.5 billion tonnes as fuel and produces 1.6 billion tonnes as food, including livestock feed grain. So if everyone was to starve the human race could produce 10% of our fuel needs if conversion was 50% efficient which it isn't.
Jatropha production in presently underutilised areas of northern tropical areas of Australia could probably supply sufficient bio-diesel to fuel Australia's tractors, ambulances, fire engines and essential defence services but not much else but no grain should be used for those purposes. There are too many people in the world and too many of them are hungry.

Jatropha, aka Bellyache bush, is highly toxic to both animals & humans. It spreads extremely rapidly, expecially along roads and riverbanks and crowds out other plants. If you're a farmer, pray you never get it coming up in your paddocks.

Its a noxious weed that cannot be farmed en masse without it spreading & taking over vast tracts of productive land. Diverting food crops to make fuel is self-destructive ... but cultivating jatropha would be suicidal.

I agree that using food crops such as corn and palm is ridiculous, but I would also say that biofuels are a very real alternative if produced using permaculture principals, any policy that dictates removal of the car from our society will fail, people vote on silly issues such as fuel prices, we are to selfish to pass up the car, so if we have to stick with it, what can we do?

We need to force car makers to implement fuel effeciency and remove ridiculous 4x4 from our roads with disincentives, we need to get rid of taxes that encourage adding kilometers as a tax saving, using permaculure principals to establish non-food crops for biofuels, made locally, used locally, we need to make it unacceptable to deforest in order to create biofuels, the CSIRO were developing yeast that could break down any plant fiber into ethanol i.e grasses, until Howard put them onto clean coal "Ha, Ha. If we don't back ethanol and biodiesl we will end up with big corporates coal-to-liquids and nuclear powered battery cars, the combustion engine is cheap and already abundant, if you think outside the box and don't believe the hype anything is possible in a positive way, most of these positive outcomes involve resting away the power from big companies and their agenda, do we have what it takes?

Consider reading "Alcohol can be a gas!" by David Blume, http://www.permaculture.com/book_menu/195/231/323 as suggested above using permaclture principals and denying big industries control of fuels we could end up with a cleaner more fertile world with localised industries supporting local communities (good energy decent and good farming practices rolled into one), it just take a few of us to realise the Biofuels look so unatractive beacause they are when Corporate greed is dictating the policy.

Ethanol is not "green" at all.

As it stands, the sugar industry is slightly CO2 positive, in that slightly more CO2 is removed from the atmosphere than emitted into the atmosphere. However estimates are that with ethanol production, the CO2 emissions will significantly increase.

To make even a dint in oil consumption in Australia by growing sugar cane for ethanol will require much “new ground”, or ground that was previously forest and quite often wet land area to be turned into sugar cane fields, thereby destroying an enormous amount of natural habitat.

Converting forest into sugar cane fields requires much diesel fuel, and using this diesel fuel eats up remaining oil supplies and adds to CO2 emmissions.

Ethanol production also requires much water and produces a liquid waste product termed “dunder”, which can be used as a fertilizer.

But dunder has a very strong and disagreeable odour, which makes it a pollutant, and many people do not want dunder applied anywhere near their homes. So eventually it becomes very difficult to dispose of the dunder, which creates a waste disposal problem.

A factory producing dunder may have to transport the dunder long distances to dispose of it, and this transportation then adds to CO2 emmissions.

Liquid biofuel investment is driven mostly by high oil prices and anticipated declining petroleum production. Environmental concern poses only a minor obstacle.

I'd urge anyone interested in biofuels to keep an eye on the website

http://biopact.com

It takes a rosy-eyed view, but reports negative developments also.

Biofuels supply 10% of the world's primary energy, a growing share as agricultural wastes and underutilised land are exploited. It would be foolish to dismiss the long-term potential of biofuels, liquid and solid, to meet a very substantial part of energy needs and help make the energy economy sustainable in the long term.

That said, some practices are unsustainable. At best, subsidised liquid biofuels provide small quantities of carbon-neutral fuel. At worst, associated land-clearing destroys biodiversity and is a major source of greenhouse gases.

Starch, sugar and oil crops in temperate latitudes tend to require plenty of agricultural chemicals and energy. Their "energy balance" when used to make liquid fuels is poor, though not as bad as sometimes made out.

But some liquid biofuels are demonstrably carbon-negative, such as ethanol-from-sugar in Brazil. This has mostly taken over pasture lands, not rainforest. Indeed as biofuels boom in Brazil, rainforest clearing has slowed and reforestation efforts are taking hold.

Competition between biofuel and food for the same crop is iniquitous and destabilises both markets. However since the greatest scope for the expansion of biofuel production is in countries which remain primarily agricultural, opportunities for greatly increased cash-crop income and import substitution have progressive implications. Agrarian economies stand to make a fortune from the biofuel boom. To stand in the way of this transition by opposing international trade in biofuels is to try to hold back a tidal wave.

In the medium term, competition from biofuels may even help keep petroleum prices down even as production declines. Extortionate oil prices will merely encourage ever-greater biofuel production.

Nick, I'd love to know what the "cloud-seeding bacteria" are that supposedly thrive in south-east Asia. Rainforests promote rain by absorbing solar energy whilst keeping the air above them cool, and by transpiring heavily and actively increasing humidity.

"From every perspective other than the purely short-term commercial, conventional agro-fuels make little sense."

Actually not so. The author makes the same black/white mistake
as many do. Stop trying to find one single solution to the energy
crisis, for the answer will be many, each playing a niche role.

Fact is that energy for power is worth more then energy for people
and to try to prevent the two from competing, makes no sense at all.

Whats wrong with converting tallow into biodiesel? What is wrong
with growing canola/mustard as a fuel source? They may not power
all the world's vehicles, but they certainly play a role in future
energy consumption.

Subsidies for biofuels have been tiny in comparison to other
agricultural subsidies in the US and EU, encouraging farmers to
reduce grain plantings. Grain prices have been so low for so long,
that large areas of production are not even attempted, for lack
of profitability.

Personally I am well aware that the West is hooked on ME energy
and if the proverbial crunch should happen, given their political
instability, I can power all my farm vehicles by growing 25 acres
of canola and have it processed locally.

That might not matter to the author, but it certainly matters to me.

And what of the "green" credentials of biofuels? In the long run bio-fuels will be carbon neutral as there will be a closed cycle in which biomass is converted to fuel which is burnt. The CO2 taken up in forming the biomass will be released when the fuel is burnt. This requires that all fuel used in the production of bio-fuel is itself bio-fuel – a difficult, but not impossible task. Providing there is surplus bio-fuel after this (and some studies have said there wil not be) then bio-fuel production and use will be carbon positive by replacing some fossil fuel. What the issue is with CO2 generation from clearing to grow biomass could be seen as an investment – a cost now, but one expected to yield future benefits.

Some respondents mentioned electric cars. The environmental benefit of this technology is felt at street level, and that there is a global penalty in terms of CO2 emission when (as in Australia) the electricity used to charge the car comes from base load coal-fired power stations. The internal combustion engine is quite efficient in extracting the chemical energy of petrol or diesel and converting it into shaft power. Gearboxes and drivetrains are very efficient. By comparison the shaft power of an electric motor is likely to have required much more chemical energy (coal or gas) because of the many steps from coal to car. The coal is burnt to raise steam, the steam turns a turbine which turns a generator which produces electricity, the electricity is transformed to a higher voltage for transmission, then (usually in two or more steps) it is transformed to low voltage delivered to your home, it is then rectified to direct current to charge the car battery, the battery then supplies energy to the electric motor. Every one of these steps has some level of inefficiency. Substantially more CO2 is released to move an electric car than an internal combustion engine car of similar weight and shape at the same speed. An electric car supported by a nuclear power station would reduce global CO2 emmissions.

Reynard, if creation of biofuels doesn't produce a significant surplus, ie more fuel produced than is consumed in making & transporting it, then no-one will bother investing in it at all. Why spend time & money on something that's a net loss?

To get to the nuclear energy/electric car paradigm, nuclear power stations will need to be built across the country to replace all the coal-fired ones, plus the existing internal combustion-driven car fleet will need to be replaced with hybrid and/or plugin vehicles. Both will require decades to achieve.

The problem is that we simply don't have decades - either global warming or peak oil will require substantial changes much sooner. We also have a looming credit crunch & potentially a recession, which would dry up finances right when they'd be most needed to get new schemes underway.

Peak Oil in particular won't give us much choice. Prices at the pump will continue to skyrocket until people can't afford to drive to work, and it won't take much of a disruption in our fuel imports to cause real supply headaches across the country. While alternate energy sources are all well & good, nothing comes even close to making up for what we consume in fossil fuels, especially oil. Our energy sources are becoming an increasingly scarce commodity, yet we still merrily burn them up like there's no tomorrow.

We'd be much better off investing in widespread public transport, eliminating tax breaks that encourage excessive motoring & find various ways to entice people out of their cars. The less we drive, the less emissions are created & the less the demand for fuel no matter how its produced. Instead there's this scramble for agrofuel, no matter what the cost to food production or the environment - its all ok so long as we don't have to change our lifestyle.

An electric car supported by a nuclear power station would reduce global CO2 emmissions.
Posted by Reynard, Thursday, 22 November 2007 2:31:06 PM

Now you are talking, particularly if the nuclear power station was one using Thorium as the major fuel source.

David

A very disappointing article. Yes, current biofuel production does not have good implications for food production, but were the technology to produce biofuel from cellulose developed, there would be no food supply conflict. I would have thought that the author would be pushing for a massive research effort along this line, but instead Nick Rose seems fixated with a Khmer Rouge like utopia.

My suspicion is further raised by this comment:

"The irony is that biomass-derived fuels have a very low power and energy density as compared to fossil fuels - for example 1.5 units of ethanol is needed to replace 1 unit of fossil fuels - and that these factors "provide permanent physical limits to the extent to which biofuels can replace fossil fuels""

The comment is already outdated as a biofuel with comparable energy density to petroleum has been developed.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/06/070620154945.htm

History consistently shows that technological advance is a safer bet for improving the lot of humanity than revolution.

Well said. As I wrote in The Australian some time ago, if the answer is ethanol, we're asking the wrong question. Apart from problems covered above, the massive subsidies for bio-fuels (including by fuel tax concessions) mean that it is not a cost-effective approach to reducing emissions, but yet another ad hoc, knee-jerk response.

I'm sorry but the claims are hysterical rantings often put forward by the petroleum industry. Palm oil: it is uneconomical to make biodiesel out of palm oil at these prices. Secondly the FAO has independently stated that there is a surplus of palm oil produced. This surplus is sufficient for three times current global biodiesel production. Finally China has massively increase its edible oil imports: it buys 45% of exported soybean compare to 25% 5 years ago. If China were to increase its per capita edible oil consumption to a per capita level as in Taiwan the amount of extra oil required is equivalent to the current annual biodiesel throughout the world.
As to lifecycle studies: not one reputable, peer review study has found that biodiesel production from any agricultural product is greenhouse gas positive.
I do not want rainforests cut down to grow more palm, but do not blame biodiesel for rainforest destruction.

How about just we just pray and wait until god comes down and gives us next weeks power ball scores. They already have the hydrogen engine. And just about everything gives off some sort of bi-product, and the sun, is just not fast enough. Something has to fry! So I would ask my self, What would make me move faster and not cause Co2.

How about just picking the one, that has the smallest emissions, and just change the laws. Its a no brainer! A big sorry too the Maisons poor world! We just hope you know what you are doing.

Why is it so hard to get something across to people? Of course we are going to have food riots all across the third world. The reason has nothing to do with biofuels, and everything to do with overpopulation. This is the subject that no-one will discuss, because it is the only subject on which George Bush, the Pope, the third world and the muslim world are united in opposition, calling it racist or genocidal.

The population of the third world is set to double in the next 25 years. Simple primary school arithmetic tells you that this means that twice the current amount of food will be needed just to maintain the current inadequate standards of living.

What should we do? If we no nothing the problem will be corrected by nature using the usual four horsemen of war, famine, disease and death. A much better way, in which we can help, is to educate young girls in the third world, as childbearing is inversely proportional to education. All of our foreign aid should be devoted to this end. Countries that refuse to accept this should be denied all aid, trade and tourism.

Look at the example of China, where the one child policy was the foundation of their current progress.

All other solutions are merely urinating into the breeze.

Plerdsus - forthright, unambiguous, and spot-on.

Without the developed world taking action to assist the third world address population pressure, our talk of biofuels to the rescue becomes discussion as useful as debate on how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

A great pity of it all is that the world congress at Cairo in 1994 addressed the population issue, and came up with a plan of action; one which fundamentalists having leverage over world governments have lobbied against ever since - unfortunately too successfully.

Articles like this, combined with many respondents, in neglecting to incorporate any mention of the fundamental problem, facilitate its cancerous growth.

Yet another example of perverted and absurd economics. Biofuels are net energy negative and it takes about the same amount of corn to fill a tank in 4WD as it does to feed a family in Africa for a whole year. Sadly people rate their wheels as being more important than anything else, refusing to accept peak oil and existing alternative means to power their precious cars. While there is insufficient land to feed the world's 6 billion people at present let alone a population that is growing exponentially it immoral to even consider growing crops for fuel while carbon neutral alternatives can be utilised.

Unfortunately, population control doesn't seem to work either. In the last 60 years or so, Australia's population has increased three-fold because we have encouraged migration and child bearing. China on the other hand has had a program of one child per family and the population there has also increased three-fold. Similarly, India which has largely tried to embrace various means of population, a three fold increase. Perhaps the latter two might slow down a bit because the population has access to better education, but the overwhelming numbers of poor and uneducated in both those countries will mitigate against that happening.

The most likely result in both China and India will be famine, exacerbated by the reduction in the food supply caused by limited supplies of water flowing from the ice fields of the Himalayas as global warming continues to bite.

Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die. Ecclesiastes VIII 15

David

Timely article and I am surprised how much education has taken place about this issue. A year ago most people seemed to think of bio-fuels as a sort of magic bullet. Nice to see so many ordinary folk are on top of the science.

Western governments are establishing generous subisidies for bio-fuel production knowing full well that they are a net negative - both in terms of energy production and climate abatement.

Why is this so?

Because energy security is much more important to them than climate is. The US now imports 58 percent of its oil, mostly from fairly antagonistic regimes. Its entire economy will be held to ransom as oil supplies dwindle or if a big supplier turns off the tap.

The US corn crop is now heavily subsidised for fuel production. The pretext for doing so is climate. The real reason is energy security.

Europe is starting to go down the same pathway. Australia will too.

There are some possible sustainable bio-fuel options, but they need much research. What is really needed right now is a moratorium on bio-fuels until these possibilities are established with firm science.

As the author says, the current push for bio-fuels will only worsen the climate crisis. No doubt about it.

For once I (mostly) agree with plerdsus. The world *cannot* feed an infinitely-growing populace. The best possible long-term outcome is population stability. It doesn't much matter what the number is. Devoting resources exclusively to food would feed tens of billions of otherwise utterly impoverished people.

Biofuels can contribute to third-world development and prosperity, enabling voluntary population control where draconian measures like China's are unacceptable.

Reynard re electric cars,

While each individual point you make is correct, the conclusion you draw is wrong because you do not look too closely. The bottom line is that an electric car (BEV or plug-in hybrid), even powered by coal-fired mains electricity, has lower emissions in use than a traditional petroleum-powered vehicle.

http://www.ilea.org/lcas/taharaetal2001.html
http://www.epri-reports.org/PHEV-ExecSum-vol1.pdf

Although ICEs have good thermal efficiency at near-constant speed and power, they're less efficient when repeatedly accelerated and decelerated, as is typical in traffic. When idling or used for "engine braking", they are entirely wasteful.

On the other hand electric motors have excellent efficiency over a wide range of operating speeds and loads, and are able to recover energy during braking.

If the mains electricity has lower carbon emissions than coal (renewable, nuclear, natural gas or even a diesel genset) then the carbon balance is *heavily* in favour of the electric car.

Comparing mains-powered cars against other emerging energy-efficient technologies would of course give less favourable results.

Storing mains power in car batteries, or having engines that produce mains-compatible power, enables vehicle-to-grid synergies which (among other good things) would greatly enhance the viability of intermittent renewable electricity generation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle-to-grid

thylacine, gecko, VK3AUU,

There are numerous biofuel sources and technologies. All yield an energy surplus (however small), many are carbon-negative, and many are viable without subsidy. Judge each on its merits, not on what you've heard about the others.

There are no single and simple solutions to the problems of oil depletion, greenhouse gas emissions, third-world poverty and population growth. There are many partial solutions. Reduction of wasteful car use and electric cars are rich-country part-solutions. Biofuels work for developing countries too.

All the partial solutions will be adopted to some extent.

"it takes about the same amount of corn to fill a tank in 4WD as it does to feed a family in Africa for a whole year."

You are free to buy that corn and send it to Africa. Just be aware
that if you do, you'll land up with lots more families to feed.
Sending food without addressing family planning issues, leads to
even larger problems, as Geldorf has discovered.

" While there is insufficient land to feed the world's 6 billion people at present"

There is plenty of land to feed the world's present population.
Fact is it has to pay, or it won't happen. Grain prices have been
so cheap for so long, that much land is set aside and nobody bothers
to produce grain on it. Look at the increase in corn production,
with the rising price.

But none of this addresses the ongoing problem of an ever increasing
population. If you don't address that, you are peeing into the wind.

I have to agree somewhat, biofuels are a great start, but not a solution. For example, what about how it is impacting indigenous peoples (for an example, read the article on the Indigenous Issues Today news blog: http://indigenousissuestoday.blogspot.com/2007/10/biofuel-and-its-non-sustainable-impacts.html )? All of the drive for biofuels is having a giant impact on indigenous peoples that is often ignored in the debate.

Flashgordon

You seem to be judging biofuels on the current status of the technology. I think it more pertinent to make a judgment based on the potential of cellulose based biofuels. Then they tend to complement food production instead of competing with it. They would also offer great autonomy to many by taking away a reliance on oil importation.

It is a shame to see so many critical of a technology with considerable potential. I would like to see what the potential of biofuel is, rather than condemn it before the research has been done. Nobody seems to mention that the oil price has risen only recently. Prior to this the price, and more importantly the DOE's low price predictions for the coming decades, meant that there was practically no research into alternative fuels. Now it's different.

Fester raises a very valid point. We haven't scratched the surface yet,
when it comes to the potential of biofuels. Just 8 years ago, oil
was still trading as low as 10$, no wonder little was invested.

Things like algae, etc, hold huge potential, but it will take time
and technology to develop these alternatives.

Biofuels don't need to be "THE" answer, but just one of a myriad
of energy sources of the future, along with solar, wind, and a number
of others. Future energy production lies in diversity, not in
one particular magic bullet.

Yabby

Commercial production of ethanol from cellulose may be less than two years away.

http://www.news.com/8301-11128_3-9811702-54.html?tag=nefd.lede

But of more interest to me is the production of biofuels other than ethanol from a sugar feedstock using processes other than fermentation. This route could produce fuels far superior to ethanol, and more rapidly than fermentation.

http://www.farmonline.com.au/news_daily.asp?ag_id=47107

Fester, there is apparently a similar plant being built in Aus,
using US technology, so there could be a tie up with your
story there.

I still like the potential of algae. You need CO2 to get them
to really grow. That makes more sense to me, then trying to pump
the stuff back into the ground. Production with the right species
and conditions, is quite amazing, by what I have read.