BIOFUELS - A blessing or a curse?

  • 2008-06-18
  • By Marge Tubalkain-Trell

RIGGING: With oil consumption going up, in the new century this scene may become a thing of the past.

A yellow blanket is spreading across Europe. In this age of environmentalism, the green lobby has convinced governments to make farmers grow rape seed, which produces the sickly yellow flower, instead of food. It's lucrative for the farmers but is it really helping the environment? We find out in our feature article. We also take a look at biocars. Surprise, surprise, you may already be using one. This week's Insider is about biofuels.

TALLINN -  It's a battle between two opposing world views; on the one hand are largely Western based environmentalists and on the other are leaders of developing nations who say that they have mouths to feed and that is more important than preserving the environment. In other words, if elephants are trampling on crops, kill the elephants.

One arena where this conflict is being fought is the issue of biofuels. There is no denying that the world is facing huge energy problems as fossil fuels are quickly being depleted. Fossil fuels are not renewable and people are using them more than ever before.
To solve the problem, agricultural processing juggernaut Archer Daniels Midland, came up with the idea of using ethanol made from corn as car fuel in the '70s

Ethanol has now become the most popular form of biofuel in the world.
They are renewable and highly biodegradable, so there is no danger to maritime environments. There is less need to import biofuels, which means countries are more energy independent.
This year oil giant Shell released a market forecast stretching to 2050. The company predicts that the world is entering into a time of "energy turbulence" that will last around 15 years.

This means that sometime before 2015, the world will be using more oil and gas than it produces. We can expect prices to surge and countries to fight for the remaining oil.
Countries will have two paths to follow. One is to agree on some general rules about conservation and increasing renewable energy sources. The other is for every country to fight it out and try to take control of the remaining oil supplies.

Criticism
Many in the developing world and beyond  think biofuels are causing more harm than good. The biggest criticism of ethanol is that an increasing number of arable lands are being devoted to fuel instead of addressing the world's pending food crisis.

The Economist reported that the amount of corn raised for making ethanol has tripled in seven years. There is therefore less room for staple food products such as wheat and soy beans, which in turn raises the prices of those products. To fill up an SUV takes about as much corn as would be able to feed one person for an entire year.

Here in the Baltics some agree with this viewpoint.
"It's clear that oil [supplies] will dry up one day, and biofuels endanger the food supply in the world. Sooner or later, the production of biodiesel from food corn will probably be diminished," said Urmo Lehtveer from the Estonian Fund for Nature.

Biofuels do not only endanger the food supplies, but also water. Plants need large amounts of water to grow. High-yield farmers are also using lots of chemicals and fertilizers, which are not good for topsoil and surface water. Growing plants requires lots of energy, sometimes even more than biofuel gives back.
The U.N. sponsored Food and Agriculture Organization claims that food prices have doubled in the past four years. The rise in food prices has caused famine in Haiti, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Egypt, Indonesia, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Mozambique and Senegal. The food shortages have grown even worse in some African and Latin American countries, where weather conditions have destroyed the crop.

Brazil has often been referred to as a country which uses biofuels the most. Brazil uses half its sugar cane to feed 40 percent of the cars in the country. At the same time, the country is axing more of its rainforests to get fields for growing sugar cane and soy.
Brazilian President Inacio Lula da Silva has stated that there is enough farmland for both cars and people. Silva said oil producers should be blamed for the rising food prices as many companies have arbitrarily increased the price of oil.

In April 2008, Bolivian President Evo Morales and his counterpart from Peru, Alan Garcia Perez, stood up in the UN to blame biofuels for the global food crisis. Morales even used the issue to condemn capitalist ideals. Bio- fuels have also been criticized by former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, UN special rapporteur Jean Ziegler and high ranking members of the FAO.

The EU has announced that by 2020 member states must get at least 10 percent of their energy from biofuels, while the U.S.A. is due to hit 20 percent over the same time period. But people are still seeking alternatives.
"The future is clearly in electric transport. Electricity production should rise. Electric transport is pure and non-polluting 's if we leave out the production of electricity," said Lehtveer.