Current biofuels harmful to environment - Unilever

14 May 2007 10:58  [Source: ICIS news]

QUEBEC, Canada (ICIS news)--First generation biofuels that use vegetable oil and corn for feedstock can increase upfront greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, said a Unilever official on Sunday.

 

“The first generation biofuels are neither environmentally friendly nor effective in costs, productivity and land use. It is a poor performing biofuel and not a sustainable way forward,” said Erich Dumelin of Unilever’s R&D, at a biodiesel conference held in the sidelines of  the AOCS’s (American Oil Chemists Society) annual meeting.

 

To give way for palm plantations in southeast Asia (SE Asia), deforestations could release as much as 830 tonnes of carbon dioxide to the air due to rotting and incineration, said Dumelin.

 

“It will take around 47 years or two generations of palm trees for their positive carbon contribution to compensate for this initial greenhouse gas emission,” he added.

 

Without significant expansion of land use which is happening in southeast Asia and south America, land demand cannot be met to accommodate the growing consumption of palm oil, soybean oil and rapeseed in food and biofuel, he said.

 

For soybeans, Brazilian rainforests store slightly more carbon than southeast Asian ones, said Dumelin.

 

“It will take over 400 years of soybean production and subsequent soybean oil derived biodiesel in Brazil to compensate on a given surface the greenhouse effect resulting from the conversion of above ground rainforest biomass to agricultural land,” he said.

 

“The situation for soybean oil is more dramatic than with palm oil due to its low oil yield and low carbon storage,” he added.

 

In order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions significantly, second generation raw materials and technologies such as biomass could be used.

 

“Second generation technologies are designed for the dimension of the fuel market and are much more beneficial in greenhouse gas reduction as well as land efficiency,” said Dumelin.

 

“However, the technologies need further developments and further optimisation efforts, which will probably take another 5-10 years,” he said.

 

Other alternatives are to increase developments in solar, wind and tidal energy.

 

The AOCS biodiesel meeting started on 12 May and ended on 13 May.

By: Doris de Guzman
+1 713 525 2653

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