Hot air on biofuel

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: Today, with the world already reeling from the initial ravages of climate change, the big question before us is whether we can trust the developed countries that are responsible, in the first instance for bringing the world to the brink of a climate holocaust, to change their unsustainable life styles and give up their carbon addiction?

Or will the political economies of the 21 st century make life styles even more permissive by packaging currently available biofuels as guilt-free green alternatives to fossil fuels when in reality their impact on destroying the environment and raising hunger could be much larger. We must not forget the fact that the rich man’s 25-gallon tank of currently available biofuels takes away the equivalent of one year’s supply of food calories from the mouth of a poor fellow Indian.

There are several US and EU studies that have, over the years, shown that the net energy delivered by the current generation of biofuels is negative when one considers life cycle energy used by all inputs such as fertiliser, pesticides, irrigation, farm implements and their running, crushing, fermenting, refining, transportation etc. While the negative energy balances are country and region specific, studies have shown that the currently available US biofuel alternatives can consume between 27% and 118% more fossil energy than the energy they deliver.

In India there are studies to show that sugarcane-based ethanol has an overall negative energy balance when all energy inputs are considered. Needless to say that there are also studies especially from Universities and Researchers in the Corn and Soybean belt of the US that actually show net energy and emissions gains from biofuels.

The key point is that any Indian policymaker who is still nurturing the elitist idea that green fuels can be grown on fallow land, wasteland or non-arable land without water and other inputs must wake up to ground realities. Economically viable yields from green crops can only be realised based on intensive cultivation using water, fertiliser and pesticides—all of which consume energy.

More importantly, however, recent work by Dr Searchinger of Princeton and Dr Fargione of Nature Conservancy has finally put to rest any doubts that existed in the research community about the benign nature of the current generation of biofuels. The research of these two eminent individuals has shown that if the impact of land use changes resulting from a push for biofuels is included then none of the currently commercial biofuels can be termed as “green energy”. The initial spurt of CO2 emissions from conversion of rested grasslands and the loss of sinks will cause an increase in GHG emissions, exacerbate climate change concerns and leave behind huge carbon debts that the resulting green fuels will take years to repay. Land use changes result in a carbon debt of some 17 years even with the most benign Brazilian Ethanol while palm oil displacing tropical rain forest leaves the planet indebted for 840 years.

The US corn based ethanol has been estimated to yield a carbon debt of 48 years. Independent studies in UK have estimated that biofuels could release 2 to 9 times the carbon dioxide released by equivalent fossil based energy over the next 30 years.

So stark are the findings that the world’s 10 ten leading ecologists and environmentalists have written to president George Bush to stop the ethanol gravy train.

Similarly the EU has imposed a process that requires certification that no land-use change was involved in imported biofuels. The EU has banned production of biofuels from use of virgin habitats, ancient grasslands and forests. Sir Gordon Brown’s advisers appeared to have taken note of the recent findings about the negative impact of first generation biofuels. On their recent visit to India, they confirmed that UK is no longer pursuing the 10% biofuel target of 2020.

Production and consumption of bio-energy in a localised and decentralised manner—consistent with age-old patterns is indeed sustainable. However, it is far from clear what adaptive measures are needed for large-scale commercialisation of these fuels so as to make commercial energy plantations sustainable.

Data on overall energy balances and the potential impact on global & local eco-systems, socio-economic settings, local lifestyles, livelihoods of indigenous people, migration, land-holdings, food security, water security etc. need to be established and authenticated. Research is also required to establish viable germ plasms & genotypes for bio-energy. The current research gaps are indeed immense.

(To be concluded)