INSIGHT: Few clear choices for biofuels

10 October 2007 17:14  [Source: ICIS news]

By Nigel Davis

LONDON (ICIS news)--The fact that where a crop is grown is more important than what crop is grown puts land use centre stage in the great push to biofuels.

From a global warming standpoint, it is better to grow forests in Europe, palm plantations in Malaysia and use petroleum-based fuels in Brazil, according to consultants SRI.

These are uncomfortable findings for biofuels protagonists, governments and anyone who loves the orangutan.

Conventional wisdom dictates that biofuels are good and have a smaller carbon footprint than fuels derived from petroleum. But the truth is not so convenient or conventional.

“Alternative land use can tip the scales between choosing a biofuel or a petrofuel, SRI says. “Petrofuels sometimes wear the smaller shoes,” it adds.

The consultants’ study into the carbon capture potential of land and biofuels production opens up the big biofuels debate still further.

The study asked whether alternative fuels are better or worse in terms of global warming potential than the conventional fuels they replace. Its answers are somewhat uncomfortable.

From a land use perspective, farmers in Northern Europe should plough up their fields of rapeseed, grow forests instead and continue to use petroleum based-fuels, it suggests.

Turning over the Brazilian rainforest to produce more sugar cane for bioethanol has negative carbon capture implications.

“It is better to convert a Malaysian rain forest into a palm oil plantation for biodiesel than it is to fill tanks with petrodiesel.” SRI says.

If there is an alternative land use then soy and palm biodiesel score over rapeseed biodiesel, which is worse than petrodiesel.

Stover ethanol (as a proxy for ethanol produced from cellulosic feedstocks) and sugar cane ethanol are better choices than gasoline, while corn/maize ethanol is neither better nor worse.

Generally speaking, where a crop is grown plays a more important role in the carbon footprint of the biofuel that what type of crop is grown. So in the case of Brazil, growing sugar cane on former grazing land or on prairie creates a smaller footprint than using gasoline.

Cutting rain forest down to grow sugar cane for ethanol production is not a good choice.

In Malaysia, a palm plantation grown to produce oil for biodiesel has a much greater capacity for carbon storage than the alternative – keeping the rainforest and using petroleum-based fuels.

On the one hand, the creation of perennial forest – as opposed to farm land – yields higher carbon storage. Oil palms yield more fuel per hectare.

One might question the fate of rain forest flora and fauna such as the threatened orangutan.

As Europe looks as though it will draw back on the subsidies it pays farmers to produce biofuel feedstocks and full lifecycle assessments start to question biofuels production itself, the study’s release is timely.

Biofuels offer up the potential to cut carbon dioxide emissions but the ultimate cost is far from clear.

There are no clear choices in biofuels, rather a series of possible trade-offs. A much more robust approach to encouraging biofuels development - and ultimately carbon capture - is needed from governments.

Given the right direction, industry will follow with the technology and business fixes.

By: Nigel Davis
+44 20 8652 3214

< previous article(ICIS Podcast: Chemical News Central 2 November 2009)

For the latest chemical news, data and analysis that directly impacts your business sign up for a free trial to ICIS news - the breaking online news service for the global chemical industry.

Get the facts and analysis behind the headlines from our market leading weekly magazine: sign up to a free trial to ICIS Chemical Business.

Printer Friendly