The Big Biofuels Blog

Experts believe that Russia has huge potential for growth - millions of acres of farmland lie fallow and vast expanses of fertile land have never been farmed at all.

Researchers In Denmark have been looking hard at the amount of biomass that will be available for biofuels after 2030 is going to become tight. This is what they say in a peer-reviewed paper in Environment Science Technology, produced by the American Chemical Society.

We show that toward 2030, regardless of whether a global or European perspective is applied, the amount of biomass, which can become available for bioethanol or other energy uses, will be physically and economically constrained. This implies that use of biomass or land for bioethanol production will most likely happen at the expense of alternative uses. In this perspective, we show that for the case of a new advanced bioethanol technology, in terms of reducing greenhouse emissions and fossil fuel dependency, more is lost than gained when prioritizing biomass or land for bioethanol. Technology pathways involving heat and power production and/or biogas, natural gas or electricity for transport are advantageous.

There's more, but you have to subscribe. The bit that interests me is the parts about heat and power production, that is static power generation. I guess there could be real benefits in this area because potentailly at least you could build power plants in the middle of agricultural areas. There would be transmission losses, but this would probably be less than the energy needed to transport liquid fuels around.

"Current policies tend to favour producers in some developed countries over producers in most developing countries. The challenge is to reduce or manage the risks while sharing the opportunities more widely."The FAO puts the total share of the world fuel market supplied by biofuels at 2%. It also makes a point that this blog has made on numerous occassions in the past that

If developing countries can reap the benefits of biofuel production, and if those benefits reach the poor, higher demand for biofuels could contribute to rural development. "Opportunities for developing countries to take advantage of biofuel demand would be greatly advanced by the removal of the agricultural and biofuel subsidies and trade barriers that create an artificial market and currently benefit producers in OECD countries at the expense of producers in developing countries,"

Burried at the end of chapter 1 of the State of food  is this gem...

The potential for current biofuel technologies to replace fossil fuels is also illustrated by a hypothetical calculation by Rajagopal et al. (2007). They report  theoretical estimates for global ethanol production from the main cereal and sugar crops based on global average yields and commonly reported conversion efficiencies.

The results of their estimates are summarized in Table 3. The crops shown [wheat, rice, maize, cassava,sugar cane, sorghum and sugar beet] account for 42 percent of total cropland today. Conversion of the entire crop production to ethanol would correspond to 57 percent of total petrol consumption. Under a more realistic assumption of 25 percent of each of these crops being diverted to ethanol production, only 14 percent of petrol consumption could be replaced by ethanol. The various hypothetical calculations underline that, in view of their significant land requirements, biofuels can only be expected to lead to a very limited displacement of fossil fuels. Nevertheless, even a very modest contribution of biofuels to overall energy supply may yet have a strong impact on agriculture and on agricultural markets.

My emphasis. Biofuels can only make a marginal difference to the world's energy demands using current technology, and as I wrote earlier today, second generation technologies around cellulose will become increasingly costly in future.

Should we be downhearted?

No!

There is real scope for biofuels to make a difference, providing that we use the right combination of technologies, we use the right feedstocks and we trade them in the right way. That is fairly across borders using a genuine free market without hidden subsidies or corruption. 

I'm going to say it once again, we as a society must  get to grips with fuel econonmy in all of its guises, from better home insulation and higher building standards to building cars with greater fuel efficiency.

Hattip to c-questor.

Part of the problem stems from protein producers' plans to cut back on production in the next year to avoid paying more for animal feed, which has been a huge weight on profits as the cost of corn has skyrocket. Beef producers cut supply by slaughtering more animals, which sends more product to market initially but reduces the size of herds to lower future inventory levels. Chicken producers, meanwhile, set fewer eggs to hatch.

Dr Titus Mathe, The South African National Energy Research Institute's (Saneri's) programme manager,  said that, although the country had a range of alternative fuels available, biodiesel was very comparable to petrol and diesel in terms of energy content. It also offered a favourable impact on energy security, as it could be locally produced.

In 2007, South Africa's demand for liquid transport fuels rose to 23 707-million litres, while State-owned power utility Eskom's gas turbine power plants demanded about 600-million litres.

European Forest Week 2008 celebrates the contribution of European forests in mitigating climate change, providing wood and renewable energy, securing the supply of fresh water and protecting our environment.

a national network of 48 full-time technical sales professionals working to reduce U.S. dependence on oil.equivalent to 48 full time sales professionals across the US

The primary advantage in feeding distillers grains to dairy heifers is cost. There are no known biological or nutritional advantages or disadvantages associated with feeding distillers grains to dairy heifers. Research trials in which distillers grains were fed to heifers observed normal growth rates, normal reproduction, and normal subsequent milk production.

As Wendell Berry has tartly observed, to take animals off farms and put them on feedlots is to take an elegant solution -- animals replenishing the fertility that crops deplete -- and neatly divide it into two problems: a fertility problem on the farm and a pollution problem on the feedlot. The former problem is remedied with fossil-fuel fertilizer; the latter is remedied not at all.

"We should go back to a policy of maximum agricultural self-sufficiency," Clinton said. While there would always be a global market for crops like rice, wheat and corn, he added, "it is crazy for us to think we can develop a lot of these countries where I work without increasing their capacity to feed themselves and treating food like it was a color television set."