The decline of the biofuel promise

Eric Holtz-Gimenez writing in Le Monde diplomatique, signaled early on that many of the environmental benefits touted for biofuels were, on closer examination, more harmful to the planet than people had been willing to admit.

Biofuels are said to be the cure to the world’s dependence on oil. They are clean, green, and sustainable, and with relentless technological advances in biofuel technology, cheap. Governments around the world announced they would invest in developing biofuel technologies and increasing production of biofuels, with Europe, for example, scheduled to have 5.75 per cent of its transport power coming from biofuels in 2010 and 10 per cent by 2020. Last year, Canada with other countries produced some 61 billion litres of biofuels, and that figure is expected to increase by 15 per cent each year into 2025.

The only problem, each one of the justifications for using biofuels has pretty much fallen apart. In July 2007, Eric Holtz-Gimenez writing in Le Monde diplomatique, signaled early on that many of the environmental benefits touted for biofuels were, on closer examination, more harmful to the planet than people had been willing to admit. To make industrial biofuels requires a very intensive use of fertilizers. Fertilizers today are petroleum-based and to grow the number of crops needed to meet the biofuel targets set by governments will require more than double the amount of fertilizer used right now in growing crops. Holtz-Gimenez writes to make that much fertilizer will double “biologically available nitrogen in the world, contributing heavily to the emission of nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas 300 times more potent than CO2.” Another consequence is a litre of ethanol absorbs between three to five litres of irrigation water and gives off 13 litres of waste water. “It takes the energy equivalent of 113 litres of natural gas to treat this waste, increasing the likelihood that it will be released into the environment to pollute streams, rivers and groundwater,” Holt-Gimenez adds.

In the past year, more studies have come out questioning many of the assumptions of biofuel’s benefits, with the most recent appearing in Science and another from the Helmut Kaiser Consultancy in Germany. These followed earlier studies from Princeton and the Woods Hole Research Centre. The supposed advantage of using corn or wheat in making biofuels is that they will capture the greenhouse gasses produced in the manufacture of the fuels. Only, that advantage is not as great as it once seemed. In fact, the amount of energy and greenhouse gasses produced to make the fuel from corn or wheat cuts substantially into whatever savings their planting will have. Some of the studies suggest the savings in greenhouse gasses is only 20 per cent and the manufacture of biofuels actually could double the amount of greenhouses gasses produced over 30 years.

Another consequence, detailed by Holtz-Gimenez and the other studies, is to grow all the crops needed to make biofuels would actually have a substantial impact on world food prices. As more useable land is set aside to grow corn and wheat destined to be made into fuel for the tank, the price for these crops rise as they become more valuable. Correspondingly, prices also will rise for staples made from them, such as bread. And as these crops increase in price and take up more land to be produced, there will be an increase in the cost of the water and land. All this puts further upward pressure on food prices. Worse, and often not talked about, is that many poor farmers in Third-World countries right now are finding themselves pushed off land they used to grow crops to feed themselves and their families so local governments can plant crops destined to be made into biofuels.

So it seems that all of the benefits of biofuels are largely myths. The savings to the environment and to the economy are just not there. The only tangible result has been a subtle change in how biofuels are being sold to the public. Now it is not about saving the environment. Instead, it is about security, getting North Americans off Middle East oil and thereby protecting everyone from terrorism. Don’t be surprised if we are told that paying double for a loaf of bread and pumping expensive biofuel into the tank of your car becomes a patriotic duty. It certainly won’t be about saving the environment.