UN urges caution over biofuels

United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon has acknowledged a growing concern over the environmental effects of biofuels.

Speaking in Hungary this week, Ban Ki-moon said: "We need to be concerned about the possibility of taking land or replacing arable land because of these biofuels."

Ki-Moon also said recently: “Clearly, biofuels have great potential for good and, perhaps, also for harm.”

Until recently, Ki-Moon has favoured biofuels as a way around the global energy crisis. However, Jean Ziegler, the UN's special rapporteur on the right to food, called biofuels "a crime against humanity" because they raised the price of food and caused starvation in poor countries.

Achim Steiner of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) also recently warned that biofuels may be adding to the problem of climate change rather than alleviating it. Speaking recently on BBC Radio Four, Steiner said that increased demand for fuel crops had led to vast swathes of rain forest being destroyed and that international standards should be drawn up to protect them.
 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7096819.stm

Clive Matthew-Wilson, editor of the car buyers’ Dog & Lemon Guide, has also been a vocal critic of biofuels.

“The fantasy behind biofuels says that it’s going to be possible to continue the Western lifestyle of the twentieth century by changing the fuel used to power it. That’s a bit like a fat person trying to lose weight by switching from hamburgers to french fries. The basic problem is never addressed.”

“Every man and his dog is currently coming up with quick fix solutions to the energy crisis and global warming. However, there’s no quick fix to either problem. In the longer term, we’re all going to have to use less energy, and that means smaller houses, less plastic junk that we don’t really need and less wasted trips in our cars.”

“Biofuels currently offer a feelgood factor, and little else. Biofuels globally are driving food prices so high that poor people in developing countries can no longer afford to feed their families. Thousands of people will inevitably starve to death so that Western motorists can sit in traffic jams on their way home from work.”

“Fonterra is making ethanol from whey – a waste product from the dairy industry. However, while the use of this ethanol will slightly reduce New Zealand’s emissions of greenhouse gases from cars, this reduction is small compared to greenhouse gas pollution produced by the New Zealand dairy industry. Greenhouse gases from dairy cows have increased 70% since 1990 while emissions from nitrogen fertiliser – largely due to dairy farm expansion – have increased 500%.”

“The bulk of New Zealand’s C02 emissions come from transport and the farming sector, especially the dairy industry. Any strategy that doesn’t result in fewer wasted car trips and reduced C02 emissions from the dairy industry is doomed to failure.”

“Cars are the perfect transport for empty roads and the worst transport for busy roads. The problem is not the private car; the problem is the private car sitting in traffic jams while empty trains roll by.”

“Electric cars and biofuels are like the emperor’s new clothes; they seem great until you look closely. When you check the facts, you’ll find that most of this so-called alternative technology either isn’t economic, isn’t green, doesn’t work, or simply doesn’t exist and isn’t going to exist anytime soon.”


Facts on biofuels, with references:

Many current biofuels use more energy to create than they give out; that is, the amount of energy used in growing, fertilising, harvesting and processing most crops generally exceeds the energy produced from the biofuel. And much of the energy used in this process comes from oil.

Ethanol

http://www.acfnewsource.org/science/ethanol_woes.html

http://petroleum.berkeley.edu/papers/patzek/CRPS416-Patzek-Web.pdf

Ethanol doesn’t necessarily save the environment. Critics of Brazil’s cane-based ethanol programme claim that: “tropical forests cleared for sugar cane ethanol [cause] 50% more greenhouse gases than the production and use of the same amount of gasoline.”

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/07/10/opinion/edholt.php?page=2

A New Zealand company – Fonterra – is making ethanol from whey – a waste product from the dairy industry. However, Fonterra refuses to say whether the process is economically viable, quoting commercial sensitivity. Also, while the use of this ethanol will slightly reduce New Zealand’s emissions of greenhouse gases from cars, this reduction is small compared to greenhouse gas pollution produced by the New Zealand dairy industry. Greenhouse gases from dairy cows have increased 70% since 1990 while emissions from nitrogen fertiliser – largely due to dairy farm expansion – have increased 500%.

http://www.mfe.govt.nz/issues/climate/about/emissions.html

Biodiesel

Growing crops like sunflowers and soya beans to create biodiesel uses more energy than the beans give out.

http://petroleum.berkeley.edu/papers/Biofuels/NRRethanol.2005.pdf

Moreover, much of the fuel being touted as biodiesel is not actually biodiesel; it’s ordinary diesel fuel blended with a percentage (5–20%) of straight vegetable oil.

The idea of running the world’s cars on waste cooking oil is also mainly fantasy. There’s very little used cooking oil to spare, because globally it’s already being recycled into things like soap and animal feeds.

http://www.auscol.com/products.htm

Rather more important, used cooking oil is a drop in the ocean when it comes to supplying the West’s transport needs. According to a report from New York’s Cornell University:

“[Used cooking oil] has an available potential to produce almost 1.7 billion gallons of [biodiesel] [which is] 1.1% of [America’s] petroleum imports today.”

(A litre of cooking oil does not give out a litre of biodiesel. Much of the cooking oil used to cook french fries is eaten as part of the fries and much of the waste cooking oil left over is unusable solids.)

http://nyc.cce.cornell.edu/emerginginitiatives/Waste%20Oils%20&%20Fats%20Supply%20Final%20Report.pdf

Because of the shortage of used cooking oils for conversion to biodiesel, there is a global race to produce vegetable oils to meet the demand. This demand has driven up food prices, making it much harder for poor people to feed their families. Also, forests are being cleared to grow crops like palm oil for biodiesel, meaning that some biofuels are actually contributing to global warming by removing forests that would have absorbed C02.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,1659037,00.html  

Biodiesel critics estimate that: “every ton of palm oil generates 33 tons of carbon dioxide emissions - 10 times more than petroleum.”

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/07/10/opinion/edholt.php?page=2

The international biofuels industry is being sustained mainly by government subsidies. In other words, the taxpayers in those countries are paying to produce ‘green’ fuels that often result in severe environmental damage, aren’t cost effective, drive up the price of food and contribute to political instability in the Third World.