NEWS ANALYSIS THE BIOFUEL DEBATE: The ethical debate on biofuels continues, but the need for an alternative fuel seems ever more urgent, writes Paddy Comyn
TRYING TO argue the case for an alternative fuel in this current economic climate is a little difficult. Let's be honest, most of us are approaching the Christmas period concerned about whether there will be enough money coming in to cover the basics.
However, the issue of dwindling oil stocks, like that credit card bill, hasn't gone away and a presentation by a biofuel expert in Dublin last Friday served only to illustrate the problem that bit further and, according to him, like it or not, we do need to pay attention to biofuels and make them work.
Anders Fredriksson of leading Swedish Biofuel Company Sekab was speaking to delegates at a conference organised by the Irish Motoring Writers Association that was sponsored by Continental Tyres. "We are consuming more oil than we are finding. We consume 88 million barrels of oil per day. According to Exxon, if we are going to keep up with the demand, we are going to have to find four new Saudi Arabias to keep up with demand by 2050," said Fredriksson.
"We will soon be facing a physical shortage of oil, and this is increasing by about two million barrels per year and this would mean we are about seven years from a peak oil situation. Since it takes about 15 years to change a car park of cars, we need to act quickly. We have the two biggest challenges to mankind, and we are facing them simultaneously. The oil has to come to end, since it is not sustainable for the environment, or as an energy source."
Fredriksson continued that by 2050, from a transportation point of view, there will be a situation where we have just 60 litres of gasoline per year per person, or 54 litres of diesel which would allow for only one litre of fuel per week per adult.
According to Fredriksson, sugar cane and cellulose technology has the real potential. Sekab has a pilot plant in Sweden running 24 hours a day, seven days a week, that they claim will be commercial in five or six years. The raw materials used is wood chips from pine trees, but other raw materials such as bagasse from sugar cane, wheat and corn stover, energy grass and recycled waste are also of future interest for the project. "It is tricky, but it's not rocket science," he added.
These second-generation biofuels are some time away. The problem with the use of biofuels centres around so-called first-generation biofuels and where the fuel comes from in many cases. Environmental groups and many political figures have been saying that the race to grow crops for fuel in North and South America has meant that fuel crops have replaced food crops.
In Malaysia and Indonesia, the production of biofuels from palm oil has been heavily criticised because forests are being burned to clear the way for planting, thus negating any positive effects and leading to the extinction of plant and animal life. Even Brazil, which has been turning sugar cane into ethanol for decades, was not immune to the finger of suspicion. It has been alleged that the growth in demand for sugar cane has pushed production of other crops such as soya beans into the rainforests. However, Brazil has hit back, claiming that it has replaced nearly 50 per cent of its petrol consumption with just 1 per cent of its arable land.
According to Fredricksson, only 200,000 hectares of land would be needed to fuel Sweden's car population with cellulosic (second generation) biofuel, when used alongside electric hybrid vehicles. On a world scale this would translate into 60 million hectares, of which Brazil would supply half, without the need to impact on the rain forest. Africa presents a viable source for the remainder, he claimed.
A panel discussion featured contributions from Colin Roche, policy and advocacy co-ordinator with Oxfam, who said that there is a need to make choices to combat peak oil and environmental change but that they must not be at a cost, by digging up soil which will release carbon, chopping down rainforest, by moving production of other commodities.
"We reckon 30 million people have been driven into poverty by the demand for biofuels. The debate is over about the link between the demand for biofuels and the impact about fuel prices this year. We estimate that tens of millions of people have been affected. It is expected that food prices will be higher than they should be. We need to be careful of encouraging the demand for biofuels. If they do have a bright future that might be encouraging, but right now we need to be careful," Roche said.
The debate continued with Bernard Rice, biofuels researcher at Teagasc, pointing out that in Ireland we currently are self-sufficient in terms of biofuel and "there is currently no downside and the carbon emissions are up there with second generation already. Our current production is small, but up to a very high standard".
Rice said that it would be more like 10 years before second-generation biofuels will be produced in Ireland, but before this can happen there needs to be more first-generation ethanol plants in order to perfect the expertise now.
Currently 30 per cent of car sales in Sweden are of FlexiFuel (FFV) and they account for the top four selling models on the market and 90 per cent of FFV drivers fill up primarily with bioethanol.
However, here in Ireland, despite there still being an incentive to purchase the fuel and there still being a VRT reduction of €2,500 on the purchase of the cars, the new road tax laws which are based on tailpipe emissions are not an incentive to buy FlexiFuel cars.
David Baddely, the managing director of Volvo Cars Ireland, speaking to The Irish Times after the conference, said that last year 70 per cent of their sales came from FlexiFuel models, but since July this has changed to diesel because it is more expensive to tax these cars. "There has been a dramatic move to diesel cars yet the price of diesel fuel looks set to rise dramatically. We accepted that there should not be a 50 per cent reduction in VRT for FlexiFuel cars but there should be a road tax incentive, otherwise there won't be an incentive to buy. Unless we embrace this technology now, then it will take longer to get to second-generation, said Baddely.
With time running out on oil, and targets set for reduction of CO2 drawing ever nearer, biofuels might soon become something that everyone will have to agree on, like it or not.