But Is Biofuel Really Sustainable?
Jobs WA
July 2, 2007Coles/Woolies’ 79% market share…Where’s the regulator?
July 3, 2007PWF reader, Mary Jane Gleason writes: “Thanks for your work, could I encourage you to consider including a link to the “The Coming Biofuels Disaster” in your next newsletter to give the “other side” of the biofuels debate? It’s a far more complex issue than it is currently portrayed.”
This email came in response to last week’s article, Sustainable Biofuel: Here And In The US where we looked at Peter Edwards’ Eco Living Centre in Melbourne and a new certification measuring individual biofuels’ sustainability.
The article Mary Jane recommends appears on US progressive think tank, The Rockridge Institute’s website and makes these points:
- Harmful impacts from large-scale biofuel production are largely overlooked. And we aren’t even addressing the right problem! The truth can be seen when we frame issues in the context of livability.
- Policy makers see that a solution to the problem of excessive carbon dioxide is to shift the energy sector towards pumping out less carbon.
“On the surface, biofuels present the ideal solution to this problem. We can grow them in large amounts and the carbon that is released by burning them is equal to the amount they breathe in as they grow. This simple mental accounting is very appealing, but woefully inaccurate for describing what is really going on.”
“The real problem is that the way we use energy is out of balance with natural processes, driving us away from the equilibrium necessary for our communities to survive.”
“We need to find livable solutions to this problem. A glance at biofuels in the context of livability shows how woefully inadequate they are for solving it. In truth, they will make things worse. The biofuels hoax, as ecologist Eric Holt-Giménez calls it, is based on several misunderstandings that arise in the language of the energy debate.”
- Contrary to popular belief, the article argues that because they are reliant of a dramatic change in the way we grow crops, biofuels are not a renewable source of energy. Pointing out that entire forests in Indonesia and Malaysia have been cleared to grow biofuel crops they argue:
“Large-scale agricultural practices deplete soils, contaminate water supplies, and are vulnerable to pests and disease when single crops (monocultures) are grown in large fields. The widespread use of pesticides – manufactured using fossil fuels – is also contributing to the cancer epidemic wreaking havoc on our communities. Current agricultural practices also require non-renewable resources and utilize vast distribution networks that are very high in resource demand – including the need for lots of energy.”
“There is considerable emphasis on genetically engineering plants to be grown as fuel sources. These plants – including corn, palm trees, switch grass, and algae – are not natural if they are the product of intentional design by genetic engineering.
By tampering with plant DNA, we run the risk of getting further out of balance, possibly introducing new and unexpected harms like invasive species that take over croplands and natural ecosystems.”
Unfortunately the writers of the article neglect to mention the high yielding and usually non genetically modified Jatropha which is grown extensively in India and is about to be adopted in Haiti as their main source of biofuel plant.
- In growing for biofuels we shift crop yields away from food production. Basic economics tells us that the cost of goods go up when supply decreases. The growing demand for grains to produce fuel has increased the cost of food.
“Bypassing Disaster With Livability”
Here’s the Rockridge Institute’s (edited down) solution:
The biofuels debate has been centered on the wrong question. The problem is not simply the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. If we address the “carbon problem” without recognizing the “livability problem” our solutions will fail. This is the challenge. We have to look at these problems holistically to see the impacts of our choices.
Addressing the climate crisis requires us to do a lot more than change from fossil fuels to plant-based fuels. Global warming is a problem because the way we live is out of sync with nature. The solution is to rethink how we relate to our natural environment. This is where livability is paramount. We need to be thinking about family farms, not factory farms. In the family farm frame, people are interacting with the earth to produce food. The factory farm frame has people interacting with the earth to produce money.
It is not even clear whether biofuels can be part of the solution at all. The family farm that supports life is inherently local and small. Introduction of an economic incentive to grow fuel crops will drive local farmers to grow ever larger biofuel crops, resulting in the pattern that is occurring now.
We can solve the “livability problem” by looking for ways to promote life. The carbon dioxide problem will get fixed along the way.
There’s some food for thought!
4 Comments
Even more evidence of the non-sustainability of biofuels is emerging – see, for example, this new report on ‘Agrofuels’: http://www.tni.org/detail_pub.phtml?&know_id=188
And another story in The Sydney Morning Herald a couple of days ago, Human greed takes lion’s share of solar energy where researchers have found that we use up almost a quarter of the sun’s energy captured by plants.
It is also a fact that we can never grow crops in sufficient quantities to fill the requirements of all the vehicles in the world no matter how many crops are planted.
What we really need is to look at the problem of fuels and all the vehicles on the roads in another way, i.e. instead of trying to find alternate fuels, rather we should be looking at different forms of transport and more efficient ones. No one who tries to drive their cars to anywhere can imagine they are travelling in the most efficient or effective manner.
It is nice to read about the little tree that could but it would be nicer to read the economic numbers on the seeds. How much do they bring the farmer by kilo on the open market for biodeisel or sale to others for planting.
Many thanks. Richard