Biofuels: The Future?

Hello Everyone! I know its been a week since I've blogged. School work's a killer.

Anyway, I've been reading up on Biofuels and it turns out that there are loads of biofuels: bioethanol, biohydrogen, biodiesel, biomethanol, bio-oil. It's pretty amazing how there can be so many different ways of creating alternative energies. The point of this entry, however, is not to introduce you to the different forms of biofuel, but to analyse the claims in the video about the merits of biofuels. If you have watched the video in the last post, it was mainly a compilation of testimonials about the applicability of biofuels in the energy market and success stories of businesses that have already switched to biofuels.

A quick summary of the video
Distributed in 2007, this video coincided with the USA Government Accountability Office's announcement that "from 2004 to 2006, annual U.S. biodiesel production increased more than 10-fold from 28 million gallons to approximately 287 million gallons." (GAO 2007). Unsurprisingly, the video champions the merits of fuel alternatives such as biodiesel, vegetable oil, and ethanol. Whilst taking jibes at oil politics and mostly slamming the oil industries, they emphasize the need for a "diversified portfolio of energy options, renewable fuel that you can blend into our existing conventional fuels like ethanol and biodiesel blended into diesel fuel and gasoline, going into our existing infrastructure, using our existing vehicles. That's the easiest things we can do. It's easy, it's now, it's available, we can grow it" (From Video: Jobe, CEO National Biodiesel Board).

The title Freedom Fuels imply freedom from oil politics (love the quote on Comedy Central "If [America] is so blessed, why did god put our oil under the people who hate us), freedom for farmers to profit economically, freedom from the shackles of the oil industry and freedom to create new alternatives to develop a sustainable energy culture to ensure that the developed countries' way of life can be maintained.

But besides praising biofuel, it has a section (albeit a little short one) on the impacts that biofuel would have on the environment in terms of the loss of plantations in sensitive areas to produce oil feasts, but solving that with a sustainable system of environmental certificates, all should be fine.

Is it all fine?

In an article by Hill et al. (2006), he states that "to be a viable alternative, a biofuel should provide a net energy gain, have environmental benefits, be economically competitive and be producible in large quantities without reducing food supplies". To generalise that all biofuels are good or bad is inaccurate because each biofuel has its own energy production requirements and environmental costs. For example, a study done by Hill shows that between corn grain ethanol (the one more widely produced in the USA) and soybean biodiesel, there is actually much less NEB from ethanol since it requires a higher energy input to produce corn and convert it to ethanol.

According to Hill et al., they believe that the production of both soyabean biodiesel and ethanol have negative environmental impacts through the movement of agrichemicals. This includes nitrogen, phosphorus, and pesticides from farms to habitats and aquifers. The usual assumption that Co2 emission reduction should be the key indicator of the success of a biofuel is largely myopic because CO2 is not the only GHG, nor is it the only environmental marker that affects the earth. Pesticides can contaminate water resources and lead to water poisoning, making the production of biofuels equally unsafe if chemicals are not properly regulated.

Scharlemann and Laurance (2008) are highly skeptical about the benefits of biofuels, discussing how there is a high chance that carbon rich rainforests will be destroyed to provide crops for biofuel. While in the video, this problem seems easily solved through a solid certification scheme, we know from experience that certification schemes are easily breached in developing countries where there is corruption. Furthermore, the terms of the certification schemes are not specific to countries with different economic and ecological contexts, and hence loopholes such as vague phrasing are often exploited to make way for greater economic benefits. If biofuels prove to be very profitable in the future, particularly ethanol biofuel because of its greater applicability in the developed world, we may face a problem of convincing developing countries to preserve their rainforests and forgo the economic benefits of the growing industry.

Furthermore, it was highlighted in the same article that trace gas emissions actually increase with biofuel production. This corroborates the point made by Hill in which nitrous oxide is produced that is also a GHG harmful to the ozone. In order to evaluate if different biofuels are, therefore, environmentally friendly, Zah et al compared gasoline, diesel and natural gas with 26 biofuels for GHG emissions and overall environmental friendliness. It turns out that 21 out of 26 biofuels reduce GHG, but 12 out of 26 have negative environmental impacts, including the economically most important ones such as US corn oil and Malaysian Palm Oil.

Of course, there are even more debates about how truly sustainable biofuels are because it may lead to food scarcity in developing countries (Mol 2007). With the development of local biofuel regions to national biofuel regions, it may increase food prices, such as that of maize in Mexico and sugarcane in Brazil as well as the availability of food to the poor (Runge and Senauer 2007a, 2007b).

Similarly, small scale farmers may be able to produce biofuels through simple processing methods. But the lack of expertise and knowledge mean that energy balances and cost structures show remarkable inefficiencies, making them attractive only in peripheral localities that are not well served by conventional fossil-fuel infrastructure. Rather than a complement to the existing fossil fuel infrastructure, it is the only viable alternative, hence not really contributing to this vision of a diversified energy system.

Not everyone is against the use of biofuels. Demirbas (2007) analyses the molecular compositions of each type of biofuel (bioethanol, biohydrogen, biodiesel, biomethanol and bio-oil) and believes that biofuels should be considered relevant technologies by both developing and industrial countries in the future. Of course this is only possible in the future when there is a better alternative energy governance system and modifications to infrastructure. The overarching belief that the benefits of biofuel in reducing GHG and hence environmental pollution is the position many are taking to push for increased production of biofuels and reduced reliance on money sucking, environmentally irresponsible oil companies (not as though oil companies cannot adapt accordingly to changing economic trends).

You may think that the biofuel debates are mostly over. So much research has already been done to prove the benefits and costs of biofuels. But is seems that that is hardly the case. Facts are debatable as to the costs and benefits of biofuels because of the methods employed to measure such costs or benefits. Some believe that in ethanol production, more energy is used than produced while others think that it uses less energy than in produces. People also place different weightage on the costs and benefits of biofuels, thereby declaring them "environmentally friendlier options" or "less environmentally friendly options" accordingly. In the news now, there is constant review of biofuel policies and many environmental news agents are rather sceptical of the perpetuated benefits of biofuels. Even now, biofuels are hotly debated in the news. These are but a few news reports:

EU Commission tightens rules for biofuel use (the need to develop schemes to produce biofuels in a sustainable way)
Biofuels targets are 'unethical', says Nuffield report (current legislations are inadequate for biofuel production)
Kenyans fear Dakatcha Woodlands biofuel expansion (destruction of ecosystems for biofuel expansion)
what are the greenest cars (benefits of hybrid cars)
Bioenergy: Food security proves a worry
Biowaste: Driving Fuels (a quick guide to how many biofuels are produced)

I actually like the idea of biofuels, despite knowing all the costs of the production of biofuels. But I believe that it needs to be thought through carefully before being produced. More importantly, I believe that the more effective way to reduce GHG is to reduce our need for energy which is the root of the problem, rather than trying to create more oil (only perhaps cleaner oil) for our ever growing appetite for energy. (I know this sounds ironic because I am typing away on a computer)

As someone put it clearly in the video, there is no silver bullet solution to the problem of energy and biofuels in the world. We need good, thought out policies. While the documentary spends a disproportionate period praising biofuels, the last few minutes of the video actually allows us to have a glimpse into the real challenges facing the biofuel industry today, that they need to address and overcome.

References:
Demirbas, A. (2007) "Progress and recent trends in biofuels", Progress in Energy and Combustion Science, 33, 1-18

Mol, A.P.J. (2007) "Boundless Biofuels? Between Environmental Sustainability and Vulnerability", European Society for Rural Sociology, 47,4, 297 - 315

Scharlemann, J.P.W. and Laurance, W.F. (2008) "How Green Are Biofuels?", Science, 319, 43 - 44

Hill, J., Nelson, E., Tilman, D., Polasky, S. and Tiffany, D. (2006) "Environmental, economic, and energetic costs and benefits of biodiesel and ethanol biofuels", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,103, 30

BBC news reports, Guardian news report, Financial Times news report
Video

Carbon Market and Carbon Dioxide

Just came home from a small forum session with Greg Baker, Minister of State for Energy and Climate Change. He was talking about creating a low carbon economy and how the UK was best positioned to develop economic growth in the direction of an environmental economy. Besides making his adoration for Margaret Thatcher and David Cameron clear (this must be endemic amongst politicians), he did make a good point about building a broader economy around renewable energy in the form of marine technology, wind power, nuclear power and solar power. We really cannot rely on a single form of energy the way we have been on coal and oil for the past few decades. This is indeed an important issue that we are always looking to today, after all, economic efficiency and productivity has always been prized as top values to pursue in our society, and so if we can promote environmental values by linking it with the intrinsic need of people to turn everything into money making business, based on sound economic theory, it is the way to go. While exasperated by this idea that we need to constantly use economics to justify why the environment should be conserved or protected, I concede that this is possibly the only way to convince people that we can have a good quality of life whilst protecting the environment.

Recently, the European Union announced that it aims to transfer carbon permits from a 3.3 billion-euro ($4.5 billion) reserve to the European Investment Bank this month so that investment can be made into innovative energy projects:

EU to Transfer $4.5 Billion of CO2 Permits to EIB This Month

What we see here is that they are treating carbon dioxide as a tradable good. If we see carbon dioxide as an absolute negative externality (well we know it isn't entirely, plants and humans need carbon dioxide to survive), what they are trying to do here is to place a quota on the externality. After all, we don't want NO externality, we just want the optimal amount of it. Well the intentions of this system is good. However, they have often been accused of setting a quota that is still too high and not giving real commitment to reducing carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere. Furthermore, all forms of markets are prone to market failure. I suppose that is why they have introduced the EIB into the equation to govern such market failures, provided government failure doesn't happen before that. Carbon trading markets are really interesting things to follow in the near future to see if it really works in reducing carbon dioxide emissions. The idea of a global carbon market does not look too feasible in the near future because of the exploitation and possible inequitability that it would bring about. But nationally, many governments believe that it is a good growth sector to look into.

However, in the present, whatever efforts put in by governments and businesses don't seem to be working:

No let up in greenhouse gas rise

Maybe this is just a transition period. Maybe there are natural forces at work here that have started a carbon dioxide positive feedback loop. But whatever the case, it is clear that we have a long way to go before we reach a low carbon society, not just a low carbon economy.

Oh haha!! And for those who want to learn more about cap and trade, albeit in a not too objective manner, you should watch this video. Its really cute and really easy to understand.


I really didn't start this post wanting to talk about carbon markets.

Carbon Capture

I recently read a newspaper article about carbon capture in East Yorkshire, and it looked really interesting:

Route of proposed carbon dioxide capture pipe announced

So basically, they plan to pipe carbon dioxide in liquid form into porous rocks off the Holderness Coast. I suppose this is similar to the carbon capture and storage system that has been reviewed quite a bit recently. This seems like a really good plan to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere I believe, although I wonder if it'll eventually become a disincentive to cut carbon dioxide production in plants.

However, there is this one news report from Click Green that believes that there are other trade offs from carbon dioxide capture and storage:

Carbon Capture will increase air pollution

The full EEA report can be found here:

Air pollution impacts from carbon capture and storage (CCS)

But as mentioned, CCS is a mid term mitigation solution as we transition to a low carbon economy (if we do so at all), but it has further repercussions on air quality and other dangerous pollutants. So is this the way we would like to go? At this point, I still think its a good short term measure if, say, carbon dioxide is certainly having the largest impact on the warming of the earth. But if it is to stay as our method for controlling carbon dioxide indefinitely, we will certainly have to face many other problems in the future.

In Other Bear-y Cool News

OMG!! Check this out:
Ancient bear had the strongest bite

and this
Can polar bears and people coexist?

Actually, I've always wondered... is it better to leave nature and humans as separate spheres? (by that I mean it in the most simplistic way possible, no debate about nature culture dialectics), or should we co exist next to them. Imagine having a polar bear friend... or not.

Whatcha think?

*please ignore the blog language)