Are biofuels worse than fossil fuels? The European Council will today release legislation that will encourage the use of biofuels to increase 50% by 2020. But environmentalists say biofuels made from some food crops contribute more greenhouse gases than the fossil fuels they are designed to replace, as well as causing deforestation and hunger. With your help, Karl Mathiesen investigates. Post your views below, email [email protected] or tweet @karlmathiesen • Food-based biofuels allowance to rise by 50% under EU plans Karl Mathiesen theguardian, Friday 29 November 2013 11.31 EST Jump to comments (35) Print this A worker washes himself on an excavator at a palm oil plantation near Dumai, as haze from clearance fires covers Indonesias Riau province June 20, 2013. Demand for biofuel from palm oil and other crops has been blamed for creating secondary land clearance and increasing greenhouse gas emissions. A worker washes himself on an excavator at a palm oil plantation in Indonesia as haze from clearance fires covers Riau province on June 20, 2013. Demand for biofuel from palm oil and other crops has been blamed for creating secondary land clearance and increasing greenhouse gas emissions. Photograph: Beawiharta/Reuters 4.28pm GMT Twitter reaction/arguments Todays debate has spilled into the Twittersphere with environmentalists and biofuels advocates trading 140 charactered barbs. @nusha_TE @KarlMathiesen because virtually all studies (not only ILUC-related) show direct positive environmental results for #ethanol. — ePURE (@ePURE_ethanol) November 29, 2013 @transenv @KarlMathiesen There is a wide consensus that #ILUC science is simply not robust enough to be accounted in policy. — ePURE (@ePURE_ethanol) November 29, 2013 @KarlMathiesen #ILUC science is immature, EBB regrets such punitive and ungrounded proposal. Capping threatens 200000 biofuels related jobs — EBB (@EBB_Biodiesel) November 29, 2013 @KarlMathiesen If you believe in these results then how can capping ethanol be justified? It cant. Under a cap there is no differentiation. — ePURE (@ePURE_ethanol) November 29, 2013 @karlmathiesen We have a project in Leeds on Energy Gardens that overcomes biofuel concerns t.co/C3Nw5A8ToV — JonLovett (@jonclovett) November 29, 2013 3.56pm GMT Go veg, grow fuel? Tobi Kellner from the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) just emailed me with his take on biofuels. The six page summary of his report advocates for a reduced reliance on meat for food. This, he says, could reduce overall demand for food crops, allowing some of them to be used to grow biofuels. In our scenario we clearly outline how we can produce a relatively large (compared to todays levels) amount of biomass and fuel in the UK without avoiding negative effects such as landgrab in other countries or release of soil carbons. The key is a fundamental land use change linked to a change in diets. Basically, the logic is this: By shifting to a more vegetarian diet with less meat and dairy we can actually produce more of our own food (and reduce food imports) on a much smaller area of land. This then frees up land which we can use for growing second generation biomass crops (e.g. willow) which can be used to produce, for example, liquid fuels. This practice does not cause deforestation, would actually decrease the requirement for overseas food imports, and the resulting shift in diets would even be healthier! 3.52pm GMT Biofuels industry reaction Barry Magee, policy manager at the European Renewable Ethanol Association (ePURE), has sent me this statement expressing disappointment in the Councils ambition, which the industry sees as undermining investment. He too questions the wisdom of the double multiplier on advanced biofuels, noting they will contribute to an increased use of fossil fuels. The European renewable ethanol industry is disappointed by the lack of ambition shown by the Council. The compromise on the table is a missed opportunity for Europe to signal its support to the best performing biofuels, from conventional and advanced feedstocks. It is becoming an increasingly complex and impossible to implement piece of legislation. The inclusion of several multipliers can only be interpreted as a quick fix to achieve targets merely on paper with the additional effect of more fossil fuel being used. As a result not only will it fail to secure existing investments, it will also not generate any new investments in Europe. Updated at 3.53pm GMT 3.39pm GMT Energy sector reaction Renewable Energy Association head of renewable transport Clare Wenner said today that biofuel sources should be differentiated as sustainable and unsustainable. She also noted that the argument that biofuels create hunger is unsubstantiated. Decarbonising transport is very difficult, but given it counts for a quarter of our greenhouse gas emissions, it is also absolutely critical. Sustainable biofuels are the best shot we have on the supply side right now. Electric vehicles will play a big role in the future, but only when grid electricity is genuinely low carbon, which is some way off. It’s crucial we only use biofuels that are environmentally and socially sustainable, and there is regulation in place already to ensure this. Regulation has already phased out unsustainable palm oil from the UK fuel mix. Compared with fossil fuels, biofuels consumed in the UK achieve 61% carbon savings, and UK-produced biofuels 69% savings. This includes emissions when land is converted to biofuel production (direct land use change). Indirect land use change (ILUC), however, is not a robust methodology for carbon accounting. It forces biofuel companies to account for the emissions of other land-based industries, over which they have no control. Food prices meanwhile are primarily affected by volatility in the oil price. The Overseas Development Institute said in May that “there is little basis for making strong statements that biofuel production in developing countries causes widespread undermining of food security through displacing food or competing for resources.” Biofuel critics tend to ignore the fact that much of the crop inputs going into biofuel production come out the other end as high protein animal feed ingredients. Vivergo in Hull, for instance, produces feed for 18% of the UK dairy herd, as well as 420 million litres of bioethanol per year. 3.37pm GMT Green group reaction Kenneth Richter from Friends of the Earth said today: For EU member states to continue supporting even those biofuels, like palm oil, which scientists overwhelmingly say are worse than the fossil fuels they replace means citizens will end up paying for more subsidies that harm people and the environment. According to a study by Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP) current EU biofuel targets could result in additional greenhouse gas emissions of as much as 56 million tonnes of extra CO2 per year when the emissions from Indirect Land Use Change (=ILUC - see further down in the ECO-Audit for a definition) are included. This would be equivalent to adding another 26 million cars to Europe’s roads. In many cases forest is cleared, directly or indirectly, to grow biofuel crops like palm oil, resulting in huge amounts of carbon being released into the atmosphere as well as threatening the survival of critically endangered plants and animals. The issue is the scale of the large demand caused by these European targets: once it’s scaled up, fulfilling biofuels targets requires vast amounts of new land, and that’s got to come from somewhere: rainforests, biodiverse grasslands, indigenous peoples’ lands are what pay the price. At the same time biofuels made from agricultural crops compete with food production over land and water, with the result of pushing up the price of food and encouraging land grabs in poor countries. In June the United Nations’ High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security confirmed in its report on Biofuels and Food Security: “When crops are used for biofuels, the first direct impact is to reduce food and feed availability. This induces an increase in prices and a reduction of food demand by the poor.” On Tuesday the former UN special rapporteur on the Right to Food called the burning of food crops to produce biofuels “a crime against humanity”. Biofuels can have an environmental benefit if they are made from waste products like used chip fat, but the vast majority of biofuels used across Europe are currently made from food crops. By allowing a 50% increase in the amount of food crops being used for biofuels and by failing to introduce penalties for ILUC emissions today’s proposal from the European Council will do nothing to stop those biofuels that result in more greenhouse gas emissions than fossil fuel, nor will it even begin to stem the tide of more and more food being used for fuel. Nusa Urbancic, policy manager for clean fuels at Transport & Environment, said: The whole point of providing EU subsidies for biofuels was to help in the fight against climate change. It’s clear that bad biofuels being subsidised aren’t reducing emissions, so the policy has to be reconsidered. It’s absolutely certain that indirect land-use change is happening - it’s probably the most researched subject in EU history. Yet still the biodiesel producers try to create doubt, which leads to more emissions and more delay for truly sustainable fuels. Tim Rice, policy advisor at ActionAid UK, said: Many biofuels are worse than fossil fuels when it comes to climate change when the biofuel in question is properly accessed for its carbon performance, including indirect land use change. Many biofuels are also implicated in land grabs and for pushing up food prices, particularly those biofuels made from staple foods that are consumed in developing countries such as wheat and corn. That is not to say that all biofuels are bad; those made from genuine wastes, such as used cooking oil, will have a role, albeit a limited role to play. But in the main, biofuels are bad for the planet and for people. It is not then a question of biofuels or fossil fuels. Both are bad. The developed world needs to reduce its consumption of energy across all sectors, for example through much more fuel efficient vehicles in transport. Ultimately fuel sources need to be found that are genuinely sustainable. Updated at 4.31pm GMT 3.27pm GMT Sourcing biofuels The EU grows the majority of the biofuels it consumes. But the graph below shows it is still a net importer. The Stockholm Environment Institute says sustainability of supply is difficult to ensure. The expansion in biofuels markets creates economic opportunities for developing countries to export to the EU while building their own domestic markets. Imported biofuels can have lower land use impact and GHG emissions than those produced in the EU, due especially to the high efficiency of some feedstocks in tropical and sub-tropical regions. However, the land-intensive nature of bioenergy creates risks for deforestation or reduction of biodiversity if proper land use governance policies are not developed and implemented. Who is growing biofuels? #ecoaudit pic.twitter/e5kCW34d7c — Karl Mathiesen (@KarlMathiesen) November 29, 2013 A report by the Centre for International Forestry Research says EU targets have significantly distorted the market in several ways: First, the mandated targets create a guaranteed market, offering clearer signals to biofuel producers and investors both in the EU and elsewhere. Second, the viability of the EU biofuels market – and thus the extent to which investment is seen as secure – is effectively defined through the sustainability criteria: only those regions and operators that prove compliance will be eligible to sell (or export) into the EU market. Third, given the higher cost of domestically produced biofuels in the EU and the commercial immaturity of other alternatives in the transport sector, a substantial share of the target is likely to be supplied by imported biofuels. The report says forests in South America are of particular concern when considering the effect of EU biofuels subsidies in distorting the market. The total impact of the EU biofuels policy on forest cover is not exactly known; although it is potentially substantial in terms of the absolute change in forest cover, it is likely to be small compared with the total global forest area. Due mainly to the prominence of bioethanol from Brazil among imported biofuels in the EU, Latin America is the most relevant region for the impact of biofuels use in the EU on tropical forests. According to the IFPRI analyses using the MIRAGE model, about 36–39% of the expansion of cropland occurs at the expense of managed forests and 3–4% of primary forests. The tables below show which crops and countries the EU imports the shortfall in its biodiesel from. Where is European biodiesel grown? #ecoaudit pic.twitter/Kzj9oGJpv7 — Karl Mathiesen (@KarlMathiesen) November 29, 2013 Where is European bioethanol grown? #ecoaudit pic.twitter/8WFabPU1xD — Karl Mathiesen (@KarlMathiesen) November 29, 2013 @KarlMathiesen This table totally lays to waste the argument that EU #ethanol demand is driving land grabs in Africa. — ePURE (@ePURE_ethanol) November 29, 2013 @KarlMathiesen BP Statistical Review of Energy has more comprehensive data (page 39): t.co/2iiS4XnRhB — ePURE (@ePURE_ethanol) November 29, 2013 Updated at 3.58pm GMT 2.33pm GMT Biofuels, biodiesel and bioethanol For those in need of a few definitions, BBC helps us all attain to GCSE-level understanding of biofuels with this quick summation. Biofuels Coal and crude oil are non-renewable resources. They take so long to form that they cannot be replaced once they have all been used up. This means that these fossil fuels are likely to become more expensive as they begin to run out. Petrol, diesel and other fuels produced from crude oil make a range of harmful substances when they are burned, including: carbon dioxide carbon monoxide water vapour particulates (solid particles) sulfur dioxide oxides of nitrogen or NOx. Biofuels are fuels produced from plant material. They have some advantages and disadvantages compared to fossil fuels. Biodiesel Biodiesel is made from rapeseed oil and other plant oils. It can be used in diesel-powered vehicles without needing any modifications to the engine. Bioethanol Ethanol, C2H5OH, is not a hydrocarbon because it contains oxygen as well as hydrogen and carbon. However, it is a liquid fuel that burns well. Bioethanol is made by fermenting sugars from sugar cane, wheat and other plants. It cannot be used on its own unless the engine is modified. However, modern petrol engines can use petrol containing up to 10 percent ethanol without needing any modifications, and most petrol sold in the UK contains ethanol. 2.27pm GMT EU source: concerns over watered down text The EU Permanent Representatives Committee (Coreper) has released a document that will form the basis for the legislation voted on by the EU Parliament on 12 December. The Lithuanian EU Presidency released a statement today which said: Against the background of continued efforts by the Presidency to arrive at a text which would bridge wide differences of views on the proposal among delegations, the Presidency is of the view that an albeit fragile balance on the key issues has emerged in the spirit of compromise. A source within the EU says the text strikes a delicate balance between diverging views within the council and that this was the best the presidency could do. But there was wide ranging dissent inside the Coreper and enormous pressure on representatives of member countries from agriculture and biofuels lobby groups. There was huge lobbying on that side. Its amazing whats going on. We are approached daily. The source said the lobbying, along with member states such as Romania, Hungary, Czech, Poland and Spain had been successful in securing concessions for the biofuels industry, including an increased cap of 7%. Euractiv reported today that lobbying had played a key part in forming the EU legislation on biofuels: Speaking to EurActiv last year, David Laborde, the IFPRI report’s author said that the EU’s biofuels policy had never been intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, so much as to appease European farmers’ and industrial lobbies. “This inconsistency makes the debate perverted in some ways because you will see, here in Brussels, lobbies fighting to the death to show that what they produce is green when we have a lot of evidence to show the contrary,” he said. “We have lobbies that don’t even bother to contact or interact with us and just go to the commission or their member states’ representative and say ‘this study is totally shitty’ and they lie in the most extreme ways.” There was genuine concern from some EU members about an aspect of the text which governs how biofuels contribute to the overall Renewable Energy Directive (RED). This mandates a target of 20% renewable energy for all EU energy consumption by 2020. By small accounting tricks the EU will now count the contribution of advanced biofuels (biofuels from non-food sources such as waste) twice. This means that we still meet 20%, but only on paper. In the real world we only meet 19.5% of renewable energy, said the source. Advanced biofuels are considered to be sustainable. But allowing them to count twice towards EU targets will weaken the RED and set a dangerous precedent for fiddling with the numbers. The contribution of iLuc factors will have to be reported by the biofuels industry. Although this will now include a large range of uncertainty. This reporting will not add iLuc factors to the overall GHG emissions of a fuel, it will simply act as a guide for policymakers and the industry on what fuels they should avoid. Updated at 3.17pm GMT 1.33pm GMT iLuc explained Indirect land use change (iLuc) could cause an area the size of Ireland to be converted to agricultural land to grow biofuels between now and 2020, according to Transport and Environment. The International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) says: Indirect land-use change (ILUC) presents arguably the most difficult challenge to policy- makers who seek to exclude unsustainable feedstock from the EU biofuel market. The difficulty lies with the fact that certifications and other sustainability requirements do not address this challenge. Even if biofuel companies procure feedstock certified as ‘sustainable,’ they may be diverting it from other uses where it will be replaced by commodities produced in an unsustainable way. This is particularly the case with vegetable oils used as feedstocks for biodiesel, because the cheapest substitute for vegetable oils, including palm oil, certified as ‘sustainable’, is non-certified palm oil. Introducing ILUC considerations into estimates of GHG savings can turn the tables for many biofuel feedstocks. [The figure below] shows all conventional biodiesel feedstocks fail to meet the RED GHG saving criteria if emissions associated with ILUC are added to direct emissions – they exceed both the 50 per cent and 35 per cent threshold lines. In Figure 3, the estimates of emissions caused by ILUC come from the modelling work of the International Food Policy Research Institute and are not the only ones available, thus subject to heated discussions on the accuracy of modelling. For instance, the European biofuel industry has commissioned its own modelling of ILUC impacts, and came with much higher estimates of GHG savings. Overall, the biofuel industry has argued that the science around ILUC is not mature enough to serve as a basis for policymaking. There are various, and hotly contested, ways of modelling the contribution of iLuc factors to the overall emissions of biofuels. The EU has adopted the model developed by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). The iLuc contributions of various biofuels under this model are shown below. Effects of iLuc when added to GHG emissions of biofuels #ecoaudit Source: Transport and Environment pic.twitter/jo8Eh3bo3G — Karl Mathiesen (@KarlMathiesen) November 29, 2013 Updated at 2.20pm GMT 1.04pm GMT Why biofuels? The International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) says biofuels are attractive substitutes for fossil fuels because they do not require significant modification to existing vehicle technology in the way that electricity and hydrogen do: Biofuels are substitutes for fossil motor fuels and can, with no or relatively simple modifications, be used in engines of the existing transport fleet. The key objectives of why governments decided to encourage increased use of biofuels in transport, according to the underlying legislation (e.g. the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 in the United States and the EU Renewable Energy Directive of 2009), are: improving energy security through diversification of energy sources; environmental sustainability, via abatement of greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution from fossil fuels; and regional economic development, particularly in rural areas Director of energy consultancy E4Tech Ausilio Bauen this week made the case for biofuels, including biodiesel produced from food crops. What will transport vehicles use as an energy source in 2030? Those of you who answered gas, electricity or hydrogen may be on the right track – as these sources are becoming increasingly useful to meet our clean energy requirements. Yet future energy scenarios such as the International Energy Agencys World Energy Outlook predict that liquid fuels will still be the main energy provider for transport– especially so for sectors such as aviation and road haulage. Biofuels offer a way to produce transport fuels from renewable sources or waste materials and significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions compared to fossil fuels. At the Europe–wide level they are also attractive in contributing to security of energy supply and to help Member States hedge against spikes in oil prices. In Europe the most common form of biofuel for transport is biodiesel, which accounts for about 70 percent of its biofuels market. Biodiesel is commonly made from vegetable oils, used cooking oils and animal fats. In fact the European Union is the world leader in biodiesel production – generating approximately half of the world’s supply. While biodiesel will continue to be part of the mix, ethanol (and possibly other oxygenate fuels like butanol) and drop-in diesel substitutes will provide most future supply. These will need to be sourced from sustainable feedstocks, largely waste and residues. 12.55pm GMT Welcome to the eco audit Concerns about the sustainability of biofuels made from food crops are set to be ignored by the European Council today as it releases a new directive which will allow their use to increase substantially. Biofuels have encountered serious opposition since the EU mandated targets for their use in transport fuel in 2009. The Renewable Energy Directive (RED) created a target for 10% of European transport energy to come from renewable sources by 2020. But environmentalists say fuels produced from food crops have unintended consequences that could make them worse than their fossil fuel predecessors. As I reported earlier today: European nations have been negotiating a cap on the amount of biofuels produced from food crops that can contribute to renewable fuel targets because of concerns they may indirectly lead to deforestation and hunger. The EU had proposed capping the use of such biofuels at 5% of total transport energy consumption – close to the current 4.7% share – later lifting that to 6% under lobbying from biofuel and agriculture sectors. But it will now be lifted even further, to 7%. The EU places regulations on the type of land which can be used to grow biofuels. This is designed to prevent the destruction of rainforests, peatlands and other important areas for biodiversity and carbon capture. But regulations fail to prevent the knock-on effects of the estimated €8.4 billion in EU subsidies that drive demand for agricultural land and cause farmers to clear new landscapes in order to meet demand for food. Campaigners say iLuc could produce as much CO2 as between 14 and 19 million cars between 2011 and 2020. In addition to concerns about the GHG contribution of iLuc, campaigners say food-based biofuels raise food prices and food price volatility, causing large scale hunger in poorer countries. The industry also uses large amounts of water and has been accused of driving landgrabbing, where people are forced off land in order to grow biofuel crops. In order to reach the 2020 target of 10% the biofuel industry has been heavily incentivised by agricultural subsidies. The agriculture lobby were instrumental in the passage of the legislation in 2009 and applied significant pressure to the European Parliament in September when they were debating the current review of the legislation. Today I will be following developments in Brussels and asking you to get involved. Please contribute your thoughts in the comments below, tweet me, or email me. If you are quoting figures or studies, please provide a link to the original source. Later I will return with my own verdict. Updated at 12.56pm GMT theguardian/environment/2013/nov/29/biofuels-worse-fossil-fuels-food-crops-greenhouse-gases?guni=Article:promo%20Most%20viewed%20by%20section%20-%20zeitgeist:microapp%20zeitgeist:Most%20Viewed%20Old%20Promo:Position2
Posted on: Fri, 29 Nov 2013 16:35:08 +0000
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