Are Biofuels Really the Answer? New Studies Blow the Lid Off Biofuel Production and the Price the Planet Will Pay
by Katharine Daniels
Executive Editor, The WIP
USA
The issue of deforestation hasn’t been on my radar for some years. It is one of the problems on our planet that I’d assumed would be so obvious that surely “they” would have discovered something more sustainable than chopping down our last remaining virgin forests for profit!
Yet, earlier this month, while driving up the Oregon coast for the first time, to my horror, I saw that the situation appears to be even worse than the last time I checked. Fresh scars mar hillsides; small, random patches of trees are left standing with no apparent logic dictating what has been cut and what left behind. Virgin forest has been shamelessly clear-cut all the way from the edge of the highway, up and over what were once green, pristine mountainsides.
In this critical period of climate change, healthy forests play a crucial role. They abate global warming by absorbing and storing carbon dioxide. Thriving forests also regulate the water cycle and stabilize soils. What look more like Christmas tree farms have replaced some of the old forest land. These young trees will take decades of growth to absorb and store the same amount of carbon their old growth ancestors once did. When wilderness is destroyed, the carbon it stored is either burned or oxidized. The threat of deforestation is even greater today than it was twenty years ago. With all the discussion surrounding biofuels, one topic embarrassingly absent is “where will all the land needed to produce biofuels come from”?
Grist magazine reports that if we were to replace even 10 percent of our gas here in the U.S. with biofuels, it would require 43 percent of the country’s arable land to produce. This fact does not bode well for our remaining virgin forests or for the agriculture industry, since biofuel will require even more land than we use for food production. Before we just blindly accept that biofuels are sustainable, as most of our leaders on both sides of the political aisle have, we must carefully consider just how “green” biofuel production actually is.
• Clear-cutting in Oregon.
Photograph by Jason Landers. •
Unfortunately this equation does not consider the wider implications such a transition from agriculture to fuel production will place on both the U.S. agriculture industry and our environment. As Joe Brewer, of The Rockridge Institute reports in “The Coming Biofuels Disaster”, “The economic incentive to grow crops for fuels instead of food will drive down food production in the long run, permanently inflating the cost of food. At the same time, less food will be produced. This combination creates a situation where landowners are motivated by profits to grow fuel crops.”
In June, The Indypendent published “The Great Biofuel Hoax”, by Eric Holt-Giménez. He reports a startling statistic: by 2010, 5.75 percent of Europe’s transport fuel will be biofuel, increasing to 10 percent by the year 2020. The U.S. has a similar goal of 35 billion gallons a year. He points out a rarely discussed feature of biofuel mania: that “these targets far exceed the agricultural capacities of the industrial North.” “Europe,” he reports, “would need to use 70 percent of its farmland for fuel. The United States’ entire corn and soy harvest would need to be processed as ethanol and biodiesel.” As history has proven, this will push Northern countries to rely on the global South to meet our fuel needs. Holt-Giménez reports that in Indonesia and Malaysia forests are rapidly being cut down to expand oil-palm plantations, which are already targeted to supply up to 20 percent of the European Union biodiesel market. Even in Brazil where fuel crops already abound, the government has outlined a goal for itself to become the supplier of 10 percent of the world’s gasoline by the year 2025.
So why, in the year 2007, are so many of us on a bandwagon that is so clearly unsustainable in its current form? Joe Brewer will tell you that our failure to recognize the dangers of massive biofuel production is an issue of framing. When framed within the context of “livability” the issue can be analyzed more truthfully.
According to Brewer, a livable community is one that “promotes life” by:
• Providing essential resources like potable water and breathable air
• Preserving these essential resources for future generations
• Providing food security (now and into the future)
• Promoting the flourishing of life (including the millions of species we co-exist with – and cannot exist without!)
The biofuels debate has centered solely on the question of how to reduce the amount of heat-trapping gasses released into the atmosphere. We have addressed the “carbon problem” without recognizing the “livability problem.” Our inaccurate frame posits that biofuels are renewable and natural, without recognizing that large scale production depletes soils and water dramatically. It also does not consider that the race to feed our cars with biofuels will spur the destruction of entire forests in the global South.
On August 17th the journal, Science, released a study that compared the amount carbon absorbed by a forested area with the total amount saved by burning biofuels instead of fossil fuels. The surprise verdict: “The carbon sequestered by restoring forests is greater than the emissions avoided by the use of the liquid biofuels.” In other words, burning petroleum-based oil, if at the same time we plant forests to compensate, is actually more environmentally friendly than burning only biofuels! The same day, the BBC also reported the findings of this study in a story titled, "EU biofuel policy is a 'mistake'". Dr. Renton Righelato, chairman of the World Land Trust, explained to the BBC how this UK-based team of scientists calculated “net avoided carbon emissions.” They began with the amount of biofuels produced per hectare and from that calculated the amount of fossil fuels that could be replaced by biofuels. "That gave a figure for avoided emissions, but then we had to subtract from that the carbon emissions generated during the production of the biofuels,” he told the BBC. Returning to the issue of our sacred forests, these researchers then compared the “net avoided carbon emissions with the amount of CO2 that would have been absorbed if forests were re-established on the land.” Calculating a 30-year period, these researchers found that "In all cases, the amount of CO2 sequestered by forests is considerably greater than the amount of emissions avoided by using biofuels."
Unfortunately, this is not all they found. The massive deforestation necessary to accommodate biofuel production, these scientists point out, has a “large and immediate impact on the carbon cycle.” Specifically, they report that forests have absorbed 100-300 tons of carbon per hectare, three-quarters of which is released into the atmosphere over the first year of clearing and burning. Recovering this damage through the adoption of biofuels, they report, would take between 50 to 100 years!
As recently as yesterday, September 11th, Reuters reported on yet another report that arrived at the same conclusion. Released by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), it said:
"The current push to expand the use of biofuels is creating unsustainable tensions that will disrupt markets without generating significant environmental benefits."
The OECD strongly urged governments to cut their subsidies for the biofuel industry and in their place, encourage research into other technologies that would not compete for land vitally needed for food production.
In its conclusion it minced no words:
"Governments should cease to create new mandates for biofuels and investigate ways to phase them out."
• A clear-cut vista in Oregon. Is this what our future holds? Photograph by Jason Landers. •
The only solution is reduction. We must conserve what we have, restore what has been destroyed, and learn to live sustainable lives.
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Comments (13)
Kate - most informative! Thank you for letting us know. Here in Argentina the government has gone gaga over biofuels and crops like soya and sunflowers are planted to a great extent..Few seem to question the fact that it could possibly ruin the environmental balance as well as leave the Argentines with even higher food prices - and perhaps as you write - less food altogether.
Posted by Louise Belfrage | September 12, 2007 6:06 AM
Human beings are smart and creative. There are ways to meet our energy needs if we can free ourselves from corporate interests, whether agribusiness or petrobusiness or any other kind of business other than the business of making life good for the planet and all creatures who live on it.
Posted by Nancy Van Ness | September 12, 2007 9:14 AM
Kate, great statistics and accumulation of information from various sources that you put together to write this article. Obviously, there's some truth to a lot of it, but remember, 43.0281% of statistics are made up on the spot!!! In other words, the numbers supplied by a company, organization, and even a government aren't necessarily accurate and they can be skewed due to a number of reasons, including personal gain, greed, fear of retaliation, etc. We must realize that there are pros and cons to any fuel alternative, including nuclear, solar, wind, or even water power that I recently saw on the Internet. Obviously, they are all valid sources that may or may not apply to certain situations or conditions, or meet certain environmental or budget criteria. That's why we are still using them all. We have yet to find a clear answer as to which fuel source is really the best when it comes to automobiles, vs. factories or other physical plants. For now we remain dependent on all of them.
Posted by Elliott Parivar | September 13, 2007 2:48 PM
Louise, Nancy, and Elliot: Thank you all for your comments. The solution will most certainly be a "creative" one that incorporates the variety of energy sources available to us, deciding which sources are not only cleanest but also sustainable.
I have seen many reports this week of rising global food costs. There is much disagreement as to whether biofuel production is behind the rise in world food prices, but it is reassuring to hear economists, at the very least, debating the subject. I hope our Presidential candidates and Washington will catch on and at least question whether or not the U.S. production goal for 2017 of 35 billion gallons of alternative fuels will have any dangerous consequences.
For more on the issue of the rise in global food prices please read yesterday's report from IRIN HERE and another report from The International Herald Tribune HERE.
I hope this dialog will continue...
Posted by Katharine Daniels | September 14, 2007 11:57 AM
A friend of mine just told me about this website. Congratulations on your choice of topic and in-depth reporting-- so different from the local interest, gossipy news reports that we are subjected to in the normal course.
Biofuel is the classic example of corporate America turning a pending catastrophe into an "opportunity." And those who wait to analyze and debate the efficacy and wisdom of such a move and the possible alternatives, will be left in the dust. Quick action means quick commitment by politicians who don't want to admit that they do not have the answer and a thorny and costly contractual nightmare for the government should itlater change its mind.
Ironically, the crisis of global warming will be used as an excuse to weaken whatever protections are currently in place for the very ecology that has made this planet a viable home for the human race. If mistakes of the past (e.g., the introduction of rabbits to Australia and the wide-spread use of DDT) could have massive impacts on ecologies, one would have to expect that the massive migration to biofuels, as envisioned by western nations, will have an enormously perverse impact on the ecology of much of the globe.
As the film "Corporation" suggested, a corporation, by definition, is a psychopath. (This film should be required viewing for all Americans.) And this is fine as long a corporations are kept "in their place." But increasingly, corporations are dictating government policy. We need to somehow turn away from the psychopathic mentality that has taken control of our nation and turned public policy into a corporate agenda.
With the biofuel mania, the United States, as usual, is looking for the big, splashy, corporate-driven solution. There are smaller solutions (the sum total of which can make a difference)that other nations are incorporating into the daily lives of their citizens. On a recent trip to the middle east, a friend reports that every home had a solar water heater and that the heating and cooling systems of all hotel rooms were programmed to turn off when the occupant was "out". When my friend noted what a great idea this energy-saving switch was, the middle easterners and europeans in her company could not believe that U.S. hotels did not have this (painless)efficiency. WE CAN LEARN FROM OTHERS. WE DO NOT HAVE A "LOCK" ON GOOD IDEAS.
Posted by Cathy Van Aken | September 18, 2007 11:08 AM
Dear Katharine,
What a thoughtful and frightening article you've written. And your picture is indeed worth a thousand words - the clear up fields up the mountain slope is fearsome. Before your article, I'd read nothing about this violent solution on which we've apparently embarked. One more time to write to our elected officials, our local newspapers and to email your words to friends. Thank you for making such a strong case for reconsidering the path we're on.
MMH
Posted by Mary Margaret Hansen | September 19, 2007 5:58 AM
Thank you Cathy and Mary Margaret for your comments and suggestions. Corporations dictating government policy is truly at the heart of this matter. We all need to call our elected officials on this and demand that priorities are returned to protecting people not corporations.
The October Issue of National Geographic is, not surprisingly, devoted to the very issue we are discussing. The issue is titled Growing Fuel: The Wrong Way, The Right Way. Author Joel K. Bourne, Jr. argues that making fuel from crops could be good for the planet – but not until after “a breakthrough or two.” Like the two reports cited in my article, he investigates corn ethanol and lays out its major downfalls. Specifically, the large doses of herbicide and nitrogen fertilizer required for production and the soil erosion corn production incurs (more than any other crop!) The most frightening point the article makes is that producing corn ethanol consumes just about as much fossil fuel as the ethanol itself replaces. This is where, as the author puts it, “Ethanol’s green label starts to brown.” You have to burn natural gas and increasingly coal is being used, in the distillation process of corn ethanol. It is possible that producing corn ethanol is actually a “loser’s game” requiring more “carbon-emitting fossil fuel than it displaces.”
The article isn’t all bad news. There are pioneers, like Christine Wietzki, a native Nebraskan, who plans to avoid the use of fossil fuels in the production of corn ethanol by firing her boilers with methane from two giant four million-gallon biogesters fed with cattle manure from the feedlot next door. Brazil has also created distilleries to produce sugarcane ethanol that consume no fossil fuel or electricity. Instead, for heat and power they burn the sugarcane waste. Sugarcane is already much more efficient than corn. The starch in a kernel of corn has to be broken down into sugars before it can be fermented whereas sugarcane is already 20% sugar and begins fermenting immediately after it is cut. Sugarcane also yields twice as many gallons an acre of ethanol than corn but offers its own host of side effects including deforestation as the economic incentive to expand production increases.
Sustainable biofuels may be part of the solution but no matter what we all must do our part to consume less fuel.
Posted by Katharine Daniels | September 20, 2007 12:00 PM
Kate,
Thank you for this piece. It is something that I probably would have gotten around to looking into and thinking about in, oh... about three to five years. Way too late to effectively deal with the real issues here.
It's the perfect time to consider and address not only the land use, sustainability, subsidies benefiting Corparate-owned farms, and carbon emissions given we are currently at roughly 6.2 billion people on this planet and are expected to reach over 9 billion later this century. And just what do we expect to feed them if there isn't any land to grow food crops on? Fast food? Bio fuels are AN answer, not the only answer for us in the long run.
I wonder if any of the natives on Easter Island ever stopped, looked around, scratched their head and posed a remark similar to yours "... what's happening to our shade?"
Posted by James Pluta | September 20, 2007 5:58 PM
Kate,
I have read three unconnected and unrelated articles of rising grain prices and huge land use changes from food crops to biofuels.
Thanks for pointing out the pitfalls of short-term and, short sighted fixes.
Dan
Posted by Dan Malone | October 24, 2007 3:32 PM
Deforestation is the concern you raise, before "we blindly accept biofuels". First of all, you misquote the amount of European land reportedly to be needed to supply enough biofuel to replace European petrol use, at 70%. The number reported was in fact 40%. You cite scientists who say that continuing to burn petrol while planting forests is more environmentally friendly than a transition to "liquid biofuel"? But in this suggested alternative, who will plant these forests as we continue burning petrol? If demand for biofuels were to cause clearcutting, would you also say that continued use of fossil fuels cause entire forests to be planted instead? And if, as you suggest, there is a blind rush to biofuels, could it be any blinder than our perpetual use of petrol? Are you suggesting that our use of petrol is sustainable?!
If you are an American, your government is spilling innocent blood for oil. Perhaps our overall consumption of fuel is the problem. Consumers promote corporate control of the earth and it's resources. And in return, corporations enable our fuel hungry lifestyles, i.e. "freedom".
Our habits need to be challenged. And any careful adoption of an alternative to petrol is a breakthrough! I think your article "coddles" a reluctance to change behaviour. Your strongly cationary article makes world biofuel conversion sound precipitously near at hand, when in fact it is very slow, owing in part to habit-based rationalizations, and a nearly sociopathic reliance on petrol.
If you assume large corporations would take over control biofuel production, then you have given in to despair. Have courage. Your article seems to paint Corporate America gung-ho to exploit biofuel, without also noting that exploitation of petroleum now involves the spilling of innocent blood. Like any "widget" or product in a corporate controlled world, a biofuel alternative will involve destruction as long as it is profitable. Corporations will not care if any alternative solutions is sustainable or not. The profit motive is morally blind. First we must be willing to change our habits.
I've looked at a study of vehicle emissions from using veggy fuel in a diesel engine. I would be happy to it pass along to you. I found that on the whole, burning bio-diesel is 50% as bad as petro-diesel in terms of vehicle emissions. Indeed we should act with discretion in choosing fuels, but your article promotes a level of caution that would have us comfortably remain in our habits as a matter of principle, because it does so without challenging our reliance on habits that burn petrol in a frenzy. The corporate interest in petroleum is much stronger than that for biofuels. I think you should have balanced your portrayal of bio-fuel over-exuberance with a portrayal of the *overall* effects of maintaining our daily supply of petrol.
Posted by boycott_petrol | March 29, 2008 2:10 AM
The article begins with a memory the writer has of a clearcut Oregon hillside, one that apparently has no direct relation to actual biofuel production. Instead it helps her portray a horrific vision of the future should we "blindly" choose biofuels.. Perhaps in the same way that people currently blindly choose petrol..
The article leaves one with the impression that going to the neighboring petroleum station is preferable.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/albion/441657503/
Posted by boycott_petrol | March 29, 2008 3:06 AM
What kind of fuel were you burning when you drove up the Oregon coast and saw the clearcut hillside? Can we credit petrol with facilitating your insiration to write this cautionary editorial?
Posted by boycott_petrol | March 29, 2008 3:20 AM
Dear boycott petrol,
I am surprised my article caused so much emotion when it seems on this issue we agree much more than we disagree. Let me restate the last sentence of my piece for you here: The only solution is reduction. We must conserve what we have, restore what has been destroyed, and learn to live sustainable lives.
I am certainly not the "pro-petrol" person you believe me to be. I do not dispute the benefits of using biofuels (especially recycled biofuels made from cooking oil - my favorite kind!) but as a responsible journalist I am obliged to address the costs of production. As you may have overlooked in my commentary above, my point is that the production of corn ethanol has major downfalls. Specifically, the large doses of herbicide and nitrogen fertilizer required for production and the soil erosion corn production incurs - more than any other crop! Citing an article in National Geographic I point out that producing corn ethanol consumes just about as much fossil fuel as the ethanol itself replaces. I ended my commentary by saying: Sustainable biofuels may be part of the solution but, no matter what, we all must do our part to consume less fuel.
We appreciate all commentary here and are happy you have taken the time to share your views with us. I do feel that your assessment of me as a journalist and as an environmentalist are misguided.
Posted by Kate Daniels | March 29, 2008 9:23 PM