Bio-fuel: Fading Optimism

Atul COWSHISH

Not very long away biofuel was hailed as the best and the cheapest alternative to fossil fuel, which has been not only depleting fast but also reaching staggering price levels.

Today those hopes look false as arrayed against biofuels are environmentalists, economists, politicians and a lot many others who thinks its use will spell more misery for the poor without bringing any environmental benefit to the warming planet.

They do not see biofuels as really a green alternative to oil as they can produce more carbon dioxide emissions than they save from loss of forestlands and diversion of food crops to raw material for biofuel.

Oil guzzlers

The likelihood of the transport sector, an important guzzler of oil all over the world, using biofuels extensively also looks remote with the International Energy Agency forecasting that biofuels will not meet more than 4 percent of the total energy need of this segment.

Very recently the attacks on biofuels have sharpened as food prices have headed north-a frightening race between oil and food prices. In less than 12 months, worldwide food prices have jumped 45 percent.

Wheat prices have shot up 180 percent in the last three years and this year alone the price of rice has gone up by 76 percent.

The very, very long era of cheap food is now said to be a thing of the past even as it has become clear that oil prices are rushing towards the $200-$250 a barrel mark by next winter.

Not everyone may agree that biofuel is a sustainable energy alternative because it eats up natural resources.

Sugarcane

In Brazil, where most of the ethanol comes from sugarcane crops, some companies have reportedly destroyed rainforests to make way for land for producing biofuel. But blaming it as a major factor in the current global food crises seems a little unfair.

Some experts have said biofuels may have at most contributed to a 30 percent increase in food prices.

But there are a host of other factors that account for high food prices-government policies including export curbs, poor infrastructure, uncertain input (seed, fertilises etc) supplies to farmers, frequent droughts in major grain producing nations, inadequate irrigation facilities, declining productivity, and speculation.

But there is little to doubt that a major factor in high food prices is the gap between the rising demand and the dwindling supply of grain because of rising population of high earners in the developing world who have the money to eat better.

President George W. Bush had annoyed a lot of Indians by emphasising the point that seemed to imply criticism of the two countries but rising food demands from countries like India and China have a role in pushing up grain prices.

Bush has also said that corn-based biofuel production accounts for only 3 percent increase in global food prices, thus contesting the belief that biofuel is the main villain in jacking up the food prices in the world.

Criticism of biofuel erupted when in certain countries in the western hemisphere a staple food crop like maze-and also soybean, sugarcane and various oilseed crops—began to be used for extensive ethanol production. The US uses about a third of its corn crop to produce ethanol but only 3 percent of the ‘gasoline’ in the US comes from ethanol.

Subsidies

Corn prices have shot up in the US but its Congress has decreed that in order to end the country’s dependence on imported oil the ethanol production in the country has to go up to 57 billion litres by 2015.

Brazil is the major producer of ethanol and also one of its most ardent supporters. Most of the bio-diesel in the world is produced in Europe.

The continent had recently decided to increase biofuel production by 10 percent by the year 2020 in the belief that it will help lower atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases. Both Europe and the US allot billions of dollars every year in subsidy for biofuel production.

Better times

This has led to a demand to end this huge subsidy, especially when many believe that increased production of biofuels has put pressure on food stocks and raised food prices. Increased biofuel production has meant diversion of more land and water resources to raising crops that do not contribute to food stocks.

There is no denying that crops that contribute to the food basket do get diverted to the production of biofuel. But things may not eventually look all that bad as the world gets ready for the second generation of biofuels, which do not require direct use of agricultural products. The second generation cellulosic biofuel uses non-edible biomass, agricultural waste that does not affect food production.

Cellulosic biomass is found in abundance everywhere and is cheap. Biofuels made from waste biomass or biomass grown on abandoned agricultural lands planted with perennials are sustainable and do not contribute to greenhouse gas emissions.

In the third world countries the second generation of biofuels can help improve economies. Biomass grows faster in regions closer to the equator and that makes some of the poor countries in Africa a good place to promote the second generation of biofuel.

Some biofuel supporters see the possibility of individual starting producing the second-generation biofuel and sell it in the open market. But such hopeful scenario will be possible only after the cellulosic biofuel production technique has been further developed, made more efficient and made available universally.

Countries like India may have to quickly start shifting their focus from the first to the second generation of biofuels.

2nd generation

To accelerate development of cellulosic biofuel technologies it will be necessary to improve the methods of harvesting and transportation of crops. Farmers will have to be encouraged to invest in growing perennial grass and fast-growing trees, probably with some subsidy.

But if the glory of ‘first generation’ biofuels proves to be short-lived one clear lesson will be that it may not be wise to depend on a single alternative to fossil fuel.

The second generation of biofuels may indeed turn out to be environmentally sustainable but it will still be more prudent to develop alongside the other alternatives of renewable energy forms to make them viable and efficient, capable of extensive application.

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