The big picture

An unbiased, factual report on biofuels: How rare is that? 6

The Worldwatch Institute has produced an interesting summary of what's happening in the world of grain supplies.

They also just published a book called Biofuels for Transport. Along with all of the positive potential for biofuels, I'm sure it also discusses the "potential" problems with "first generation" biofuels.

These are some of the latest buzzwords being used to support industrial agrofuels. The word "potential" suggests that there are not yet any actual problems. The words "first generation" suggest that all of these "potential" problems will fail to materialize thanks to the timely arrival of "second generation" fuels.

The reality, of course, is that these fuels (i.e., industrially grown food monocrops) are already wreaking all kinds of havoc and are likely to remain the only commercially viable biofuels for the foreseeable future (i.e., forever).

Note two of the three high-profile reviewers: Senator Lugar (R-Ind.) and Vinod Khosla (billionaire venture capitalist). Lugar not only grows corn and soybeans, but his entire political career has and still does depend on supporting them. Khosla is gambling that he can increase his already truly perverse personal wealth with diversified investments in these fuels.

Quotes from the report:

People consume a little less than half (48 percent) of the world's grain directly -- as steamed rice, bread, tortillas, or millet cakes, for instance. Roughly one third (35 percent) becomes livestock feed. And a growing share, 17 percent, is used to make ethanol and other fuels.

At 784 million tons, the record harvest of corn was buoyed by the growing use of this grain to produce biofuels, which prompted farmers in the United States (responsible for over 40 percent of the global harvest and half of world exports), Brazil, and Argentina to plant more land to corn.

Despite the record harvest, the low stocks and strong demand combined to push prices of all cereals to new highs. At harvest time, the U.S. corn export price was up about 70 percent from the previous year.

Developing countries are likely to spend a record $52 billion on imports of cereals in 2007, up 10 percent from 2006. This follows a 36-percent hike in the previous season.

Even international food aid programs, which also purchase their supplies on the world market, have been forced to scale back. The volume of aid provided through the largest assistance program in the United States, Food for Peace, dropped by nearly half since 2005, to 2.4 million tons, in response to a 35-percent increase in the cost of agricultural commodities as well as the rising costs of fuel for shipping. The combination of rising food costs and declining aid can be fatal for the estimated 854 million people worldwide who experience hunger on a regular basis.

The appeal of the word "biofuel" to well-intentioned environmental types (of which I am one) is instructive. I suspect that the ranks of the Worldwatch Institute are as split on this issue of industrial agrofuels as most other groups in this circle. Certainly the former head of this organization, Lester Brown, sees biofuels as a major threat to the poor.

Which will be cheaper to produce: cane ethanol, palm oil and other crops grown on dirt-cheap land now occupied by nature (in the Congo, Amazon, Cerrado, etc.), or the cellulosic and algae-based fuels being studied in labs and test facilities? If these "second generation" fuels (to date having no use except as an excuse to support the "first generation" ones) ever get out of the test facilities and labs, they will have to compete economically with billions of dollars invested at the taxpayer's expense in "first generation fuels."

My real name is Russ Finley. I live in Seattle, married with children. Suffice it to say that although I am trained and educated as an engineer, my passion is nature. I very much want my grandchildren to live on a planet where lions, tigers, and bears have not joined the long and growing list of creatures that used to be. In an attempt to minimize the workload on Grist editors responsible for turning my submissions into intelligible articles, I will also be posting on a seperate blog called Biodiversivist, which will contain articles in addition to those submitted to Grist.

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  1. Delay And Deny's avatar

    Delay And Deny Posted 2:57 am
    16 Dec 2007

    General FusionWe need to solve this problem by leaps and bounds...not by baby steps.
    Garage scientist aims to thwart OPEC

    http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=2785016f-0338- ...
    Few, however, embody the bold promise of new technology as well as Mr. Laberge, who has drawn around him some of the same people who first saw Ballard's promise. One of them is Michael Brown, now executive director of Chrysalix Energy Management, Canada's largest clean energy venture capital fund.
    "If this form of fusion works, this is worth not millions but more than billions," Mr. Brown said. "I used to say that you can have a one-comma opportunity, a two-comma opportunity or a three-comma opportunity. This may be a four-comma opportunity. You write out a number with zeroes and four commas, that's a big number."
    The reason: if fusion works, it will use as an energy supply a material -- deuterium -- that is so prevalent it could power all of earth's needs for millions of years. And it will do it cheaper than coal power, completely without greenhouse gases and without risk of nuclear meltdown (a coal plant produces more radiation than a fusion plant would).
    http://www.generalfusion.com/

    My Log

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  2. GreyFlcn Posted 7:44 am
    16 Dec 2007

    LolBailo, you're always good for a laugh ;D
    http://gizmodo.com/assets/resources/2007/09/fleethorse.gi ...

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  3. Jonas Posted 8:28 am
    16 Dec 2007

    Potential means something elseBiodiversivist, you are confusing a few things. When biofuel experts speak about the 'potential', they mean something quite different: they mean the technical potential for their production on a global scale, according to different scenarios, time horizons and sustainability criteria.
    You are confusing these, with (equally interesting) questions about social justice and economics.
    In scientific analyses of the sustainable potential of biofuels, deforestation is explicitly taken out of the equation. So there is no need for confusion here either.
    For example, the most comprehensive assessment of the potential of biofuels was written by scientists working for the IEA's Bioenergy Taskforces (in particular Bioenergy Task 40, which deals with global biofuels trade).
    In these assessments, they show that it is technically feasible to produce maximum 1300EJ of exportable biofuels by 2050 and in an explicitly sustainable manner, - that is: after all the food, fiber, fodder, fuel and forest product needs (FFFFF) of rapidly growing populations are met and without deforestation and without impacting conservation areas.
    That's what's meant with 'potential'.
    It's a spatial term. They do not delve into possible bioconversion breakthroughs or biotechnological breakthroughs.
    They just limit the analysis to simple factors:

    -what are the longterm population trends under different scenarios and in different regions?

    -what is the FFFFF demand under different scenarios in different regions?

    -and after meeting this demand, how much non-forest, non-protected, non-built up, arable land is left for bioenergy production in these regions?

    -and how much biofuels can you make under different agricultural technology scenarios?
    The answer is the technical potential, geographically distributed to account for different regional demographic and demand scenarios.
    So, taking the potential as a spatial concept, the question must be asked: where can these 1300EJ it be found?
    The answer is: in Africa (317EJ) , Latin America (221EJ) and the CIS (Russia, Baltics: 199EJ).
    The scientists often explicitly state that this technical potential can be increased with biotechnological and bioconversion breakthroughs. E.g. the photosynthetic efficiency of temperate crops is now only 0.3%, but a theoretical potential of 3%, or a 1000% increase is possible and biotechnology can work towards this. They mention this, but it is not taken into account.
    Scientific analyses of the biofuels potential are very sound and robust, and based on freely accessible data and on projections based on existing agricultural technologies. Not on biofuel technology breakthroughs.
    Check the most comprehensive and detailed assessment:
    IEA Bioenergy Task 40:
    Edward M.W. Smeets, André P.C. Faaij, Iris M. Lewandowski and Wim C. Turkenburg, "A bottom-up assessment and review of global bio-energy potentials to 2050", Progress in Energy and Combustion Science, Volume 33, Issue 1, February 2007, Pages 56-106
    And other studies by the IEA Bioenergy Task 40, here.
    So now we know how much biofuels we can produce without deforestation and without an unnecessary food versus fuel debate. We can produce 1300EJ by 2050 in a sustainable manner. That is around 6 times the total amount of oil currently consumed by the world.
    This is what the planet can carry; a simple scientific fact.
    On this basis - but you have to at least do the effort to recognise the basis - you can ask all kinds of non-scientific questions that deal with social justice and economics:

    -how are we going to help Africa and Latin America realise this potential?

    -do we need trade reform, farm policy reform in the US/EU, etc...

    -what's needed to help communities in the South participate in turning this technical potential into real potential, etc...

    -how to avoid multinationals from becoming the sole benefactors, etc...
    If you recognise the scientific fact that we can produce a huge amount of biofuels, and if you look at the geographical distribution of this potential, then you can beging to make a strong case, like we do, to promote efficient biofuels made by African farmers, over inefficient biofuels made by American or European farmers.
    You can begin to make a case for trade reform and the abolishment of criminal subsidies; about the need for tech transfers to the South, etc...
    But to repeat it once more: you are confusing the pure technical potential of biofuels (not much to debate about this; the data about the types and suitability of land and the extent of forests and future food demand etc... are all pretty straightforwards) on the one hand, and socio-economic questions on the other.
    Please keep them apart, because this (deliberate?) confusion could be killing a lot of people in the developing world by denying them one of their few  chances to make a living.

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  4. Biodiversivist's avatar

    Biodiversivist Posted 9:50 am
    16 Dec 2007

    JonasMy critique is focused on the fuels as they are being produced today. We must stop producing them unless or until we can do so in an ecologically sound and sustainable manner.
    I would not be critical of anyone who has managed to produce a biofuel in an ecologically sound, sustainable manner, especially if it also helped alleviate third world poverty.
    I wish Biopact all the luck in the world with their plan to use ecologically sound, sustainably grown biofuels as an instrument of poverty reduction. I also wish you would stop trying to use me as your scapegoat. And if you fail in your endeavors, by allowing corporations to continue to displace and enslave poor people or by furthering the destruction of the planet, I'll probably be blogging about it. So do a good job.
    http://news.mongabay.com/2007/1112-hance_woodlark.html
    http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11671-biofuel-plant ...
    http://www.utne.com/issues/2007_142/features/12610-1.html ...
    http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/07/03/america/LA-GEN- ...
    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americ ...
    http://news.mongabay.com/2006/1214-uganda.html
    Anybody who wants to add to these links, feel free.
     

    In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

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  5. GreyFlcn Posted 10:47 am
    16 Dec 2007

    Here's a questionDoes the US Renewable Fuels Standard have any sort of ecological or greenhouse mitigating mandate attached to it?
    i.e. Does it have to be actually "Green" to qualify?
    Or do things like Corn Ethanol produced using Coal Electricity qualify?

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  6. GreyFlcn Posted 11:14 am
    16 Dec 2007

    Really tiny numbersThe scientists often explicitly state that this technical potential can be increased with biotechnological and bioconversion breakthroughs. E.g. the photosynthetic efficiency of temperate crops is now only 0.3%, but a theoretical potential of 3%, or a 1000% increase is possible and biotechnology can work towards this. They mention this, but it is not taken into account.


    It's probably more accurate to call it 10x.  However it is nice to know how low the current realistic photosynthetic rate is.
    Hrmm lets see



    Take the theoretical limit of photosynthesis. 11%

    Apply Fischer Tropsch at 32% energy left.

    And yes you get about 3.52% photosynthetic rate.
    Catch being that this 11% photosynthetic rate plant doesn't exist outside of a some physics equations written down on a notebook.
    It also doesn't take into account the fact it takes energy to transport this liquid (Roughly a 12% loss), and that you lose more than half of it when burning it (60%-85% lost).
    And of course also that temperate also has the downside of getting half the solar energy budget per year as tropical (50% loss).


    Pretty much even if we're operating at the theoretical limits of physics, photosynthesis is still rather weak.
    Assuming the second law of thermodynamics doesn't exist.


    Even if we could magically achieve that 11% solar efficiency, that's still on the weak side of what solar-electric can do.
    If you recognise the scientific fact that we can produce a huge amount of biofuels, and if you look at the geographical distribution of this potential, then you can beging to make a strong case, like we do, to promote efficient biofuels made by African farmers, over inefficient biofuels made by American or European farmers.
    Well I don't really doubt that statement

    http://greyfalcon.net/biolimits.png
    However the problem with that is that even thats still not enough.
    Another similar study was mentioning biodiesel production, and they were ranting about how we could meet a total 4-5% of world diesel demand.

    http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story?id=50 ...
    3% is comparable to the amount saved by inflating our tires better.
    Oh yeah, and that study comes with a caveat.

    It assumes no vegetable oil is exported for food.

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