Biofuels… The word already evokes the image of clean and inexhaustible renewable energy, confidence in technology and a power of progress compatible with the lasting protection of the environment. It allows the industry and politicians, the World Bank, the United Nations and even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to present the fuels made from corn, sugar cane, soya and other cultures as the next step in a smooth transition from the peak of oil production to an energy economy based on renewable resources, which yet has to be defined.

The programs are already ambitious. It is anticipated that the fuel coming from biomass will cover 5.75 % of the needs of transportation fuels in 2010 and 20 % in 2020. The United States are aiming at thirty-five billion gallons a year. These goals are vastly higher than the production capacities of the industrialized countries of the Northern hemisphere.  Europe would have to mobilize 70 % of its arable lands to cover its deal of the bargain; the totality of the harvests of corn and soya in the United States would have to be converted to biofuel and biodiesel. A conversion of that order would completely turn upside down the food systems of the nations in the North. That is why the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is interested in the Southern hemisphere to cover their needs.

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The big oil, cereal and automobile industries and genetic engineering groups are powerful partners in this rapidly increasing mobilization of capital and the stupefying growth of the biofuel industry.

One more reason to spread light on the underlying myths of the transition to biofuels before jumping on the already speeding train.

The five myths

1.      Biofuels are clean and protect the environment

2.      Biofuels do not cause deforestation

3.      Biofuels allow for rural development

4.      Biofuels do not cause starvation

5.      Biofuels of "the second generation" are within reach

Biofuels are clean and protect the environment

Since the photosynthesis that takes place in this culture removes greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and since biofuels can reduce the dependence on fossil fuels, they are said to protect the environment. When one analyses their impact 'from cradle to tomb' – from the land clearing until their use in road transportation – the reductions in greenhouse gas emissions are canceled out by the much more important ones due to deforestation, to fires, to the drainage of humid zones, to cultivating practices and to the loss of carbon in the ground.

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The ethanol produced from sugar cane cultivated on land cleared from tropical forests emits half as much again of greenhouse gases as the production of an equivalent quantity of gasoline.

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Industrial cultures destined for fuel necessitate the massive spreading of fertilizer produced from oil, of which the world consumption  – currently 45 million tons a year – has more than double the level of nitrogen biologically available on the planet, which thus contributes strongly to the emission of nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas whose potential for global warming is three hundred times higher than the emission of CO2 (carbon dioxide). In tropical regions where most  biofuels will soon be coming from, chemical fertilizers have ten times more effect on global warming than in temperate regions.

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Biofuels do not cause deforestation

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The introduction of cultures destined for biofuels will simply have the effect of pushing back these communities (indigenous populations) towards the "agricultural frontier" of Amazonia, where the devastating ways of land clearing are all too well known. Soya already supplies 40 % of biofuels in Brazil. According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the more the price of soya increases, the more the destruction of the humid rain forest in Amazonia will accelerate – 325 hectares a year, at the present rate.

In Indonesia, oil palms destined for the production of biodiesel – called the "diesel of deforestation" are the principal cause of the retreat of the forest. In 2020, those surfaces will have tripled and will reach 16,5 million hectares – England and Wales taken together, – with as a result a loss of 98 % of the land covered by forest. Neighboring Malaysia, the prime producer of palm oil in the world, has already lost 87 % of its tropical forests and continues to clear land at the rate of 7 % a year.

Biofuels allow for rural development

Cargill and ADM control 65 % of the world's cereal market; Monsanto and Syngenta dominate the market of genetically modified products. … Very likely, small farmers will be expelled from the market and from their land. Hundreds of thousands have already been moved out from the "republic of soya", a region of over 50 million hectares which covers the south of Brazil, the north of Argentina and the east of Bolivia.

Biofuels do not cause starvation

According to the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), there is enough food in the world to feed all its inhabitants with a daily ration of 2,200 calories in the form of fresh and dried fruits, vegetables and milk and meat products. However, because they are poor, 824 million people continue to suffer from hunger. … A concrete example is Mexico. Its customs barriers having been dismantled by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Mexico now imports 30 % of its corn from the United States. The growing demand for ethanol in this country has put enormous pressure on the price of this cereal, which went up last February to its highest level in ten years, causing a dramatic rise in the price of tortilla – the basic food for the Mexican population.

On a planetary level, the poorest people spend 50 to 80 % of their family's income on food. They suffer when the high prices of the cultures for fuel make the prices of food go up. … If the present tendency continues, 1.2 billion inhabitants could suffer from chronic hunger in 2025.

Biofuels of "the second generation" are within reach

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The international energy agency estimates that within the next twenty-three years, the world could produce 147 million tons of biofuels. Such a volume will produce a lot of carbon, nitrous oxide, erosion and more than 2 billion tons of used water. As surprising as this may seem, this will just compensate for the annual increase of global demand for oil, currently estimated at 136 million tons a year. Is it worth the enormous investment?

For the big cereal companies, certainly. Whether they are called ADM, Cargill or Bunge, they are the pillars of agro business.

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Unfortunately, the transition towards biofuels suffer from a congenital flaw. They enter into competition with food for land, for water and for resources. Developed to the extreme, they will be used to produce… biofuels. … "Renewable" actually does not mean "unlimited". Even if the cultures can be replanted, the land, the water and the nutriments remain limited.

Actually, the attraction of these biofuels resides in the fact that they might prolong the oil-based economy. … The higher the price of oil, the more the price of ethanol can increase and still remain competitive. In fact, that is the very contradiction for the second generation biofuel: as the cost of biofuel goes up, biofuels of the first generation become more profitable. … The world energy crisis is potentially a gold mine of 80,000 to 100,000 billion dollars for the food and oil corporations. It's not surprising that we are not encouraged to scale back on our habits of "over-consumption".

There is nothing inevitable in the transition towards biofuel. Numerous local solutions of replacement have been conducted successfully in certain regions, proving to be efficient on an energy level and still remaining centered on the needs of the inhabitants. These replacements have proved operational for producing food and energy without having a bad effect on the environment or on the means of existence.

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It would be unacceptable for the countries in the North to move the burden of their over-consumption to the South of the planet, simply because intertropical countries get more sun, more rain and have more arable lands.

(Translation by Siv O'Neall)

© Copyright 2007 by AxisofLogic.com

Siv O’Neall is an Axis of Logic columnist, based in France.  She can be reached at siv@axisoflogic.com

Read the Biography and additional articles by Axis Columnist, Siv O’Neall