(Source: NY Times)

U.S. Doctors Say Biofuels Could Kill Over 192,000 Per Year in Developing Countries

Image courtesy: via NYTimes.com

The food vs. fuel debate has intensified a little more with the ever growing demand for bio-fuels.  Many of the world’s hungriest people are going to bed without a morsel to eat, as more of the conventional food crops such as corn are diverted towards making biofuels that power the vehicle fleets. This above graphic from the NY Times article shows an alarming increase in the way we have change the consumption from food to fuel starting at the dawn of this 21st century.

Each year, an ever larger portion of the world’s crops — cassava and corn, sugar and palm oil — is being diverted for biofuels as developed countries pass laws mandating greater use of nonfossil fuels and as emerging powerhouses like China seek new sources of energy to keep their cars and industries running. Cassava is a relatively new entrant in the biofuel stream.

But with food prices rising sharply in recent months, many experts are calling on countries to scale back their headlong rush into green fuel development, arguing that the combination of ambitious biofuel targets and mediocre harvests of some crucial crops is contributing to high prices, hunger and political instability.

This year, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization reported that its index of food prices was the highest in its more than 20 years of existence. Prices rose 15 percent from October to January alone, potentially “throwing an additional 44 million people in low- and middle-income countries into poverty,” the World Bank said.

On a related note, the following was published on TreeHugger.com:

The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) has released a warning that U.S. and European policy to increase the production of biofuels could lead to almost 200,000 deaths in poorer countries. How? Mostly through higher food prices. Most biofuels are made using food crops like corn at this time, and diverting corn to ethanol refineries not only increases the price of corn, but it also encourage farmers to plant more of it, leaving less space for other types of crops, driving up their price too. This is a big deal if you live on $1-2 a day…

Click here to read the entire article.

(Source: Greenbang, Alpha Galileo & Green Car Congress)

Data: Gerbens-Leenes et al via Green Car Congress

The ‘water footprint’ of bioenergy, i.e. the amount of water required to cultivate crops for biomass, is much greater than for other forms of energy. The generation of bioelectricity is significantly more water-efficient in the end, however – by a factor of two – than the production of biofuel. By establishing the water footprint for thirteen crops, researchers at the University of Twente were able to make an informed choice of a specific crop and production region. They published their results in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) of 2 June.

The researchers found, for example, that it takes an average of 14,000 litres of water to produce one litre of biodiesel from rapeseed or soya. However, the water footprint for rapeseed in Western Europe is significantly smaller than in Asia. For soya, India has a large water footprint, while the figures for countries such as Italy and Paraguay are more favourable. In the generation of bioelectricity, too, there are big differences between the crops: sugar beet has by far the smallest water footprint – jatropha is 10 times less water-efficient. For the production of bioethanol, sugar beet is again by far the favourite: one litre of bioethanol made from sugar beet takes 1,400 litres of water, as against 2,500 litres for sugarcane, which is widely cultivated  in Brazil.  A new report from Novozymes describes how Brazil could produce up to 8 billion liters (2.1 billion gallons US) of biofuel from sugarcane residues (bagasse) by 2020, representing additional export revenue for Brazil of up to US$4 billion. In Brazil, the proportion of bioethanol used in transport fuel is already at 50%; by comparison, the proportion is 7% in the US, 2% in China, and 1% in Europe, according to Novozymes.

(Source: Greenbang, Alpha Galileo & Green Car Congress)

The ‘water footprint’ of bioenergy, i.e. the amount of water required to cultivate crops for biomass, is much greater than for other forms of energy. The generation of bioelectricity is significantly more water-efficient in the end, however – by a factor of two – than the production of biofuel. By establishing the water footprint for thirteen crops, researchers at the University of Twente were able to make an informed choice of a specific crop and production region. They published their results in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) of 2 June.

The researchers found, for example, that it takes an average of 14,000 litres of water to produce one litre of biodiesel from rapeseed or soya. However, the water footprint for rapeseed in Western Europe is significantly smaller than in Asia. For soya, India has a large water footprint, while the figures for countries such as Italy and Paraguay are more favourable.

In the generation of bioelectricity, too, there are big differences between the crops: sugar beet has by far the smallest water footprint – jatropha is 10 times less water-efficient. For the production of bioethanol, sugar beet is again by far the favourite: one litre of bioethanol made from sugar beet takes 1,400 litres of water, as against 2,500 litres for sugarcane, which is widely cultivated  in Brazil. 

A new report from Novozymes describes how Brazil could produce up to 8 billion liters (2.1 billion gallons US) of biofuel from sugarcane residues (bagasse) by 2020, representing additional export revenue for Brazil of up to US$4 billion. In Brazil, the proportion of bioethanol used in transport fuel is already at 50%; by comparison, the proportion is 7% in the US, 2% in China, and 1% in Europe, according to Novozymes.

(Source: Green Inc, NY Times)

Raising crops to produce electricity, which will in turn power cars, is more efficient, a new study says, than raising crops to create ethanol to use as fuel in cars.

According to a study by three California researchers, an acre planted with corn for ethanol will provide far fewer miles of transportation fuel as the same acre growing trees or switchgrass, which are then burned in power plants that provide the power to charge the batteries of electric cars.

In fact, even ethanol made from cellulose, a technology that does not now exist in commercial form, is not as efficient a use of biomass as burning it in a power plant would be, the researchers found.

In a paper published in the current issue of Science magazine, Chris Field, a professor of biology at Stanford and director of the Department of Global Ecology at the Carnegie Institution, Elliott Campbell of the University of California, Merced, and David Lobell of Stanford’s Program on Food Security and the Environment, write that the size of the advantage would depend on many factors.

These include the number of miles per gallon any particular vehicle will go on ethanol, and what a battery weighs per kilowatt-hour of energy stored. As batteries get lighter, for example, it takes less energy to move them.

But the researchers estimated that a small battery-powered S.U.V. would go nearly 14,000 miles on the highway on the energy from an acre of switchgrass burned to make electricity, compared to about 9,000 miles on ethanol.

If one grows a tree or annual crop, for example, which pulls carbon dioxide out of the air, burns it in a power plant that captures and stores escaping CO₂, and then replaces it with another crop, which pulls yet more carbon dioxide out of the air, the process becomes carbon negative.

The “miles per acre” question, and the amount of farmland diverted for use in producing transportation fuel is a sensitive political question, with American use of corn for ethanol blamed in part for last year’s run-up in global grain prices.

(Source: GreenBiz via Reuters)

The Obama administration established a Biofuels Interagency Working Group this week in a move that carries implications for the industry on several fronts, including regulatory and research and development. 
 
The Biofuels Interagency Working Group, comprised of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Energy (DOE)  and Department of Agriculture, will develop a biofuel market development program, coordinate biofuel infrastructure policies, study biofuel lifecycle and help existing biofuel producers secure credit and refinancing.

Meanwhile, the DOE will spend $786.5 million in stimulus funds on demonstration projects and research to accelerate the adoption of next-generation biofuels. 

For example, the agency will dole out $480 million on 10 to 20 pilot-scale and demonstration-scale projects, with a ceiling of $25 million and $50 million, respectively. Another $176.5 million shall be used to increase funding for two or more commercial-scale biorefinery projects that previously received government assistance.

The DOE biomass program also will dedicate $130 million toward research into ethanol, algal biofuels and biofuel sustainability research.

The proposal breaks down renewable fuels into four categories: cellulosic biofuels, biomass-derived diesel, advanced biofuels, and total renewable fuel. The fuels must produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuels, but there is great debate within the biofuel industry about how these lifecycle assessments should be calculated.

$480 million solicitation for integrated pilot- and demonstration-scale biorefineries

Projects selected under this Funding Opportunity Announcement will work to validate integrated biorefinery technologies that produce advanced biofuels, bioproducts, and heat and power in an integrated system, thus enabling private financing of commercial-scale replications.

DOE anticipates making 10 to 20 awards for refineries at various scales and designs, all to be operational in the next three years.  The DOE funding ceiling is $25 million for pilot-scale projects and $50 million for demonstration scale projects.

These integrated biorefineries will reduce dependence on petroleum-based transportation fuels and chemicals. They will also facilitate the development of an “advanced biofuels” industry to meet the federal Renewable Fuel Standards.

(Source: Autobloggreen)

The nail in the coffin of corn-based ethanol might be made of water. The magazine Environmental Science & Technology has published an article that pegs the amount of water needed to make enough corn ethanol to move a vehicle one mile at 50 gallons. That’s pretty high. 

ES&T calculated the amount of water needed to grow the corn as well as the water that is affected by agriculture. From the article:

As biofuel production increases, a growing need exists to understand and mitigate potential impacts to water resources, primarily those associated with the agricultural stages of the biofuel life cycle (e.g., water shortages and water pollution) herein referred to as the water footprint.

The worst case scenario, ES&T found, would be irrigated sorghum grown in Nebraska and turned into ethanol. This would use up to 115 gallons per mile. Corn grown there would require 50 gallons of water per mile. Say good-bye to “food vs. fuel,” say hello to “Drink or drive.”

Click here to read the entire article.

(Source: TreeHugger)