Stop the biofuel madness

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

It is said that there is not enough land on which to grow food, and this is, more than likely true, and yet land is being taken out of food production at the same time to satisfy our “need” for gasoline and diesel in the form of bio-ethanol and bio-diesel. If you think that this, somehow, does not compute I have to concur with you. It does not.

We must have gone totally insane to put fuel before food, whether it is corn (maize) being grown for biofuel or miscanthus, or whatever.

Somehow it would appear that automotive fuels have greater priority to those that claim to be our “leaders” than food security. Can we really not think beyond the motorcar and are we going to put driving before food? It would appear that those “leaders” most certainly do.

We can neither eat our gars nor the fuel on which they run, whether made from mineral oil or from plants and we must make the choice and make this clear to those that pretend to be our rulers.

Furthermore, aside from using valuable farm land, or in the case of palm oil for bio-diesel destroying the rainforests of Asia, biofuels will do nothing whatsoever to reduce carbon emissions and pollution, it is just a change from fossil fuel to another one to be burned in combustion engines.

Additionally, bio-diesel particle emissions, the ones held responsible for the increase in asthma, have been found to be several times greater than those from fossil suel diesel.

We are jumping from the proverbial frying pan right into the fire, and losing out as regards to farming areas at the same time. Has everyone gone insane?

It would, however, appear that everything is being done to maintain the motoring madness instead of getting people out of their cars and onto or into alternative means of getting about.

The British capital London has been told to cut air pollution by 2020 or face hefty fines and the cutting of pollution, whether in London or elsewhere, is not going to happen if we keep on motoring as we do right now and, as far as diesels are concerned, it will only get worse with bio-diesel. Time to wake up!

It is good to see though that many young people in the early part of the second decade of the twenty-first century are going car-less and are walking, cycling or using public transport instead. This is, to a degree, due to the ever increasing cost of running a motorcar as with tax and all that aside from the purchase price but also because they begin, and it is but a beginning only, so far, to understand that motoring is not a sustainable way.

There are still too many people who are not comprehending this, as yet, and firmly believe that mineral oil derived fuels and others will continue to make personal private motoring, which many see as a (human) right even by now it seems, possible.

This is, however, an illusion conjured up to them by those – unfortunately – in power with their snouts firmly embedded in the trough of the oil and motor industry.

You can't eat your car, or roads, neither most bio-fuel crops. We have to understand that we either can drive and by this very action destroy the Planet or change our ways and eat. Both at the same time soon will no longer be possible.

And here we are coming back to the issue of the way ever since World War Two the car has been put on a pedestal and we have separated ourselves not only further from Nature but also, as far as where we live further from our places of work and thus have become dependent and reliant on the car to get from home – often many tens of miles away – to work and back.

With mineral oil, if I may call it that, running out all over the place cheap and plentiful petroleum products are about coming to an end and no amount of tinkering, such as with hydraulic fracturing – fracking – for shale oil and shale gas is going to make any difference in that quarter. It is just going to prolong the agony and the destruction of ecosystems.

We must transition now to a oil-free future, and that included one free of biofuels, which still pollute and possibly even much more, to one without the internal combustion engine. And even methane produced by anaerobic digestion be best reserved for use in our electricity generating plants and for cooking and heating than for use in motor vehicles.

It is time – high time indeed – that it was realized that the time of personal motoring is over, is history and that the motorcar is and will have been but a blip in the history of mankind. The future is car-less, at least internal combustion engine car-less. And the sooner this was being realized the better and the futility of biofuels (and fracking) be abandoned.

© 2013

UN launches biofuels report

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Responding to a report launched on Wednesday, June 26, 2013 by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization on the impacts of biofuels on food security, Friends of the Earth's Biofuels Campaigner Kenneth Richter said: “This is a stark reminder that Europe's biofuel targets are driving up food prices and increasing hunger among the world's poorest people.

“The biofuels industry is lobbying hard against new proposals before the European Parliament to limit the use of food crops for biofuels.

"MEPs must not bow to industry pressure - they must end the use of food for fuel.”

The report, written by the UN's High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security, confirms that the production of biofuel from crops has a significant and direct impact on food prices and food availability:

• "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."

• "Everything else being equal, the introduction of a rigid biofuel demand does affect food commodity prices. This observation holds in each context, even in the context of prices going down for other reasons than biofuels."

• "In the last few years (since 2004) of short-term commodity food price increase, biofuels did play an important role."

• "All crops compete for the same land or water, labor, capital, inputs and investment and there are no current magic non-food crops that can ensure more harmonious biofuel production on marginal lands. Therefore, non-food/feedcrops should be assessed with the same rigor as food/feedcrops for their direct and indirect food security impacts."

Biofuels, of whatever kind, are not the answer. What is required is a rethinking of the way we do things and the way we travel. In addition to that studies have shown that bio-diesel, for instance, has a higher output of particulate matter than has diesel derived from fossil oil. Those minute particles released into the atmosphere are the causal agents of asthma and other respiratory problems.

The problem is, however, that the powers-that-be wish to maintain the status quo of motoring for all as event he mere suggestion of it in public would put the cat among the pigeons, proverbial speaking, and lose them votes.

There is a possibility of one option for bio-diesel, though it again would mean that most people would have to give up the use of their private motorcars, and that is the use of gasoline made from hemp, as was intended for the first cars made by Henry Ford. He also built an entire car body from hemp fiber plastic.

Hemp, though, while an almost miracle crop, could never sustain the current level of motoring around the world and the only way we can progress and keep the Planet safe and healthy is by returning to other modes of personal transportation, which does not include the car.

For governments to even suggest this at this present moment in time, however, would be political suicide as the people have gotten so used to personal motoring that they will vote for anyone – regardless – who will promise them the continuation of this. And with regardless I mean here also that they are quite prepared to let the Planet go to hell in a hand basket, so to speak, for their short-term motoring freedom.

It has already been established that the growing of crops for biofuels is causing hunger in many areas and food shortages in general, as well as shortages on other levels, such as water but the people in the developed world do not care enough. Their only interest is the continuation of the status quo as regards to motoring and other ways of life.

Vast stretches of tropical rainforests are being destroyed wholesale for the growing of oil palms for palm oil for the creation of biofuels and also palm oil for use in cosmetics and other products. And other areas are being destroyed too for the growing of other crops for biofuel production; areas that could, even though claimed to be “marginal” lands, for the growing of foods.

When it comes to growing of certain foods too we have a problem such as when in Kenya “French” beans are being grown for consumption in the UK and other parts of the EU. The growing of those, and other crops, which are not part of the diet of the local population, is water intensive and occupies land that those countries, where hunger is a daily problem for many, could much better use in order to grow food for their people.

I have no problem with taking surplus crops from far away places if they are indeed surplus but am dead against cash crop produce grown for the markets in the developed world which being foods that the local people do not eat.

It is high time that the world rethought its priorities and fuel and cash crops are not priorities.

When it comes to fuel for motor vehicles it is time that we rethought personal motoring and while it has given people the freedom to live far away from their jobs and commute this has done no one any real favors. On the contrary.

© 2013

The UN's report 'Biofuels and food security' can be found here.

Carluccio's restaurant chain to recycle waste oil

By Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Italian restaurant chain Carluccio's has announced plans to convert its waste cooking oil into bio-diesel and thereby slashing the organisation's annual carbon emissions by up to 90%.

Carluccio's made the statement last week after finalising an agreement with leading bio-fuel producer Convert2Green to manage the conversion process.

Although no details were given as to when the partnership would commence, it is understood that Cheshire-based Convert2Green will collect waste oil from the eatery's 54 UK outlets and recycle it into high quality bio-fuel. That in turn will be used to fuel delivery trucks, which is where the emissions savings are made.

Steve Kaddish, Carluccio's development manager, said the move was just a part of the business' overall sustainability strategy, stating that the chain "takes our recycling, waste management and carbon savings very seriously."

Mr Kaddish explained: “Waste oil collection is a way for us to take positive steps and by making changes to the way we behave as a business; we are aiming to improve both the social and environmental impact of our operations.

“Our aim in the first twelve months is to save 92.7 tonnes of carbon through recycling our waste oil - a big step in our overall aim to recycle in the region of 78 per cent of all our waste.”

Andy Webb, director of Convert2Green added that restaurants in the UK are increasingly looking toward more sustainable practices. He said: “Restaurants produce thousands of litres of waste cooking oil per annum which might otherwise go to landfill or be exported, and may even cause environmental problems.

“By recycling with Convert2Green, the used cooking oil will be refined into bio-fuel here in the UK for use in road transport and for the generation of renewable and sustainable energy, thereby saving even more carbon emissions.”

While it must be said that converting waste cooking oil into bio-diesel is a great idea and much, much better than using virgin oils, be this palm oil, or whatever, to produce that fuel, we are still trying to keep the status quo as to the infernal combustion engine. We must get away from that thing though.

The other problem with bio-diesel is that the particle emission are at least the same if not worse. On the other hand, conversion also should not be needed if the vehicles would have their engines adjusted properly. Most diesel engines could, really, burn a multitude of oils.

Our love affair with the infernal combustion engine, whether it burns gasoline, diesel or even “natural” gas, is something that we must reconsider and we must do this rather pronto.

There is simply no way that we can produce all the crops for bio-fuels, as that would either mean fuel or food, in the end, and neither can we get enough waste cooking oil from which to make bio-diesel.

A serious rethink is required and the bicycle – in it various forms – and other human-powered vehicles – must be brought back into the equation.

Using waste cooking oil for bio-fuels is a great idea and a way of disposing safely of the oils it is NOT the answer.

© 2011

OECD report finds that lowering energy consumption is better than biofuels for reducing greenhouse gas emissions

Well, now that was obvious, was it not... How much did this study cost?

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

According to a new report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), entitled "Economic Assessment of Biofuel Support Policies", not only is public support of biofuels costly, it also has very little impact on reducing “greenhouse gas” emissions.

All the tax incentives, blending targets and other public support policies in the European Union, the US, and Canada total $25 billion per year but will ultimately result in less than a 1% reduction in emissions from transport by 2015, according to the OECD report.

The benefits of biofuels are very often more than overstated

The OECD said that if Brazil’s ethanol produced from sugar cane cuts greenhouse gas emissions by around 80%, biofuels from feedstocks in the United States, the EU or Canada tend to have a far lower environmental benefit. Biodiesel from vegetable oil cuts greenhouse emissions by around 40-55% and ethanol from corn…generally cuts them by less than 30%.”

The worst offender in this list, biodiesel from palm oil, according to some estimates actually increases greenhouse gas emissions compared to ordinary diesel by 800%, and in addition possibly contributes to Orangutan extinction in the wild.

Lowering energy consumption is by far a better solution than biofuels

In its recommendations, the OECD says that governments should offer more support for second generation biofuel feedstocks that don’t use food crops, but more importantly, policies designed to reduce overall energy consumption should receive more funding.

A study recently has also shown that instead of lowering and reducing CO2 and other emissions biofuels can actually make matters worse. Therefore, we need to look at new sources and also at old ways of transport. Yes, I did say, OLD ways, and this includes especially the bicycle and the horse and mule.

From the report’s policy recommendations,

A priority focus, said the mentioned report, needs to be given to reducing energy consumption. This is especially important in the transport sector where the growth in energy use and related environmental problems is most pronounced. In particular, this includes the gradual move from highly energy intensive modes of transport to less intensive ones, and improvement in fuel efficiency in all transport sectors. Generally the costs of reducing GHG emissions by saving energy are lower than by switching to alternative energy sources, in particular biofuels.

While this is being said by the OECD the UK government still supports the 10 percent target by 2020 but wants the indirect effects of biofuels to be part of the sustainability criteria, and the UK wants a rigorous review of the target in 2013-2014.

Why this continuing support of the 10 percent target? One can only assume that jobs and money is at stake here, and votes and promises of investment here and there.

Essentially, in the report, the OECD is recommending that government embrace the factor that energy efficiency is crucial for combating climate change and for making renewable energy technologies most effective.

A recent World Bank report estimated that, alongside drought and speculation, biofuels derived from crops such as grains, oil seeds and sugar were responsible for up to three quarters of recent hikes in food prices which have hurt the world's poorest.

Global demand for agricultural land would soar by 2020 meaning in future all biofuel demand must come from marginal land, including use of hi-tech fuels derived from waste like straw and wood chips instead of food. Other sources could be, as apparently the Brazilians have pioneered, ethanol from grass clippings. Then there also is good old methane, as a gas, which could be cerated in methane digesters.

We also, as I have already stated, must get away form the overuse, and overuse it indeed is, of the motor car for transportation.

Why does anyone have to use the car to pop round to the corner shop for the newspaper or that packet of cigarettes? Why do the children have to be taken to school by car, seeing the school is only a block away?

Yes, I am a cyclist and do not even own a motorcar. I do not even have a driver's license. So, I know that people might think me biased as regards to the car but that is not the case. It is the needless use that I am against.

I am also against the needless use of other motorized operations when human-powered would do nicely. We must liberate ourselves from the over-reliance on gasoline or diesel powered appliances and vehicles. While there is a case for such appliances and vehicles, etc. at times, there are more often than not occasions where starting up the lawnmower or the car would take longer than doing it in a more old-fashioned way.

We must reduce our energy consumption, and that on a number of levels. The survival of mankind, to a great degree, depends on this. Do we want food or fuel? We must decide.

© M Smith (Veshengro), July 2008
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Another Inconvenient Truth: Biofuels drive hunger and are not the answer to climate or fuel crises says Oxfam

June 25, 2008 12:01 AM

Today's biofuel policies are not solving the climate or fuel crises but are instead contributing to food insecurity and inflation, hitting poor people hardest, according to a new report by international agency Oxfam.

In today's report "Another Inconvenient Truth", Oxfam calculates that rich country biofuel policies have dragged more than 30 million people into poverty, based on evidence that biofuels have already contributed up to 30% to the global rise in food prices.

Oxfam believes the UK government, which introduced 2.5% of biofuel in all transport fuel last April, should reverse its policy instead of doubling the amount by 2010. The UK government should also press the EU to follow suit, by cancelling plans for a 10% biofuel target by 2020. Oxfam hopes that the conclusions from the 'Gallagher Review'*, due out tomorrow, will add extra pressure on the Government to act.

"It would be shameful if the government decided to plough on ahead regardless of mounting evidence exposing the dangerous short-comings of biofuels," said report author Robert Bailey. "Their biofuels policy is out of sync with its overall ambition to tackle climate change and promote development around the world.

"Rich counties' biofuel policies- including the UK's - is actually helping to accelerate climate change and deepen poverty and hunger. Rich countries' demands for more biofuels in their transport fuels are causing spiralling food inflation."

He continued: "If the fuel value for a crop is more than its food value, then it will be sold for fuel instead. Thanks to generous subsidies and tax breaks, that is exactly what is happening. Grain reserves are now at an all-time low."

Rich countries, including the UK, are supporting their own biofuel production through rapidly increasing targets, subsidies, tax breaks and tariffs. From being hailed as a green initiative, biofuels have been used to protect farming interests, with support ultimately creating a new 'tax on food'.

"Rich countries spent up to $15 billion last year supporting their own biofuels while blocking cheaper Brazilian ethanol, which is far less damaging for global food security and the environment. That's the same amount of money that Oxfam says is needed to help poor people cope with the food crisis," said Bailey.

"This is a regressive tax that hits poor people the hardest because their food bills represent a greater share of their income," he said.

The biofuels being grown today are not an effective answer to climate change. Instead, biofuels are taking over agricultural land and forcing farming to expand into lands that are important carbon sinks, like forests and wetlands. This triggers the release of carbon from soil and vegetation that will take decades to repay.

Oxfam estimates that by 2020, as a result of the EU's 10% biofuel target, carbon emissions from changing land use for palm oil could be almost 70 times greater than the annual savings the EU hopes to achieve from biofuels by then.

The report shows that biofuels will not address rich countries' need for fuel security, as has been argued by supporters of biofuels. "Even if the entire world's supply of grains and sugars were converted into ethanol tomorrow - in the process giving us all even less to eat - we would only be able to replace 40% of our petrol and diesel consumption," Bailey said. "Rich country governments should not use biofuels as an excuse to avoid urgent decisions about how to reduce their unfettered demand for petrol and diesel."

In developing countries, Oxfam says that biofuels could provide a sustainable energy alternative for poor people in marginalized areas - but that the potential economic, social and environmental costs can be severe, and countries should proceed with caution. In Mali for example, bioenergy projects provide clean renewable energy sources to poor women and men in rural areas. But, as the main plank of a policy to substitute transport fuel by rich nations, biofuels are failing.

Bailey said: "Biofuels were meant to be an alternative to oil - a secure source of new transport energy. But rich countries have designed their policies too much for the benefit of domestic interest groups. They are making climate change worse, not better, they are stealing crops and land away from food production, and they are destroying millions of livelihoods in the process."

Download the complete report here...
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Abandoned farmlands are key to sustainable bioenergy

Biofuels can be a sustainable part of the world's energy future, especially if bioenergy agriculture is developed on currently abandoned or degraded agricultural lands, report scientists from the Carnegie Institution and Stanford University. Using these lands for energy crops, instead of converting existing croplands or clearing new land, avoids competition with food production and preserves carbon-storing forests needed to mitigate climate change. Sustainable bioenergy is likely to satisfy no more than 10% of the demand in the energy-intensive economies of North America, Europe, and Asia. But for some developing countries, notably in Sub-Saharan Africa, the potential exists to supply many times their current energy needs without compromising food supply or destroying forests.

Elliot Campbell, Robert Genova, and Christopher Field of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology, with David Lobell of Stanford University, estimated the global extent of abandoned crop and pastureland and calculated their potential for sustainable bioenergy production from historical land-use data, satellite imaging, and ecosystem models. Agricultural areas that have been converted to urban areas or have reverted to forests were not included in the assessment. The results of the study are published in the June 25 online edition of Environmental Science and Technology.

The researchers estimate that globally up to 4.7 million square kilometers (approximately 1.8 million square miles) of abandoned lands could be available for growing energy crops. The potential yield of this land area, equivalent to nearly half the land area of the United States (including Alaska), depends on local soils and climate, as well as on the specific energy crops and cultivation methods in each region. But the researchers estimate that the worldwide harvestable dry biomass could amount to as much as 2.1 billion tons, with a total energy content of about 41 exajoules. While this is a significant amount of energy (one exajoule is a billion billion joules, equivalent to about 170 million barrels of oil), at best it would satisfy only about 8% of worldwide energy demand.

"At the national scale, the bioenergy potential is largest in the United States, Brazil, and Australia," says lead author Campbell. "These countries have the most extensive areas of abandoned crop and pasture lands. Eastern North America has the largest area of abandoned croplands, and the Midwest has the biggest expanse of abandoned pastureland. Even so, if 100% of these lands were used for bioenergy, they would still only yield enough for about 6% of our national energy needs."

The study revealed larger opportunities in other parts of the world. In some African countries, where grassland ecosystems are very productive and current fossil fuel demand is low, biomass could provide up to 37 times the energy currently used.

"Our study shows that there is clearly a potential for developing sustainable bioenergy, and we've been able to identify areas where biomass can be grown for energy, without endangering food security or making climate change worse," says Field, director of the Department of Global Ecology. "But we can't count on bioenergy to be a dominant contributor to the global energy system over the next few decades. Expanding beyond its sustainable limits would threaten food security and have serious environmental impacts."

Source: Carnegie Institution
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Moratorium on biofuel 'would lower food prices'

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

A moratorium on grain and oilseed-based biofuels could slash food prices by up to 20% within the next two years, according to leading agricultural researchers.

Leading figures from the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) suggest that suspension of production of grain and oilseed-based biofuels this year would reduce corn prices by about 20% and wheat by about 10% in 2009-10.

During a briefing on global food prices organised by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), a group of international experts backed such a moratorium.

However, they argued that other crops, such as sugarcane, could still be a valuable source of biofuels.

Joachim von Braun, director general of the IFPRI, told reporters he was not advocating a general moratorium on all biofuels because, as he said, there are biofuels and there are biofuels – there are good biofuels and bad ones.

He added that the waste-based and sugarcane-based biofuel production can be very good and the opportunities of agriculture being an energy producing sector should not be in principle discarded.

His suggestion was backed by Robert Zeigler, director general of the International Rice Research Institute.

"If we are talking about biofuels derived from maize, soybean oil, palm oil, yes I think I would support a moratorium on that," he said, “but if we are talking about biofuels generated from sugarcane or other non-consumable plant products then I would not support a moratorium there."

One can but wonder why we are toying with the idea of food-based, e.g. grain-based, biofuels in the first place. The Brazilians have shown the way for years and years – decades by now, if I am not mistaken, that ethanol can be had from other materials, including, so I understand, grass clippings. Now, if the latter is the case, I am sure that with all the grass clipping on people's lawns being wasted en entire industry could be created.

Multi-fuel engines can quite happily, like the diesel engines designed by and for military vehicles, including the Humvee, burn waste cooking oils without any loss in power and range, and this without the oil even having to be converted in any way. All that needs to happen is the bits filtered out. Why is it not being done.

How can we even contemplate to grow and use food crops for the production of fuel for vehicles while people go hungry and prices go to unaffordable levels? The powers that be apparently can do so without blinking an eyelid.

Palm oil for biofuels is an anathema in the first place as the growing of the palm for said oil is devastating large areas of rainforests, areas that we cannot permit to be lost.

Why, therefore, is nothing done to develop fuels from other sources, properly? Why are people who do their own biofuel being prosecuted at times? It all boils down, yet again, to money and the interests of the big conglomerates and the governments.

M Smith (Veshengro), June 2008

Get a reduced bus fare when you hand over your cooking oil

Scottish bus network goes carbon neutral

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

In some places in Scotland you can now get a reduction on your bus fare if you hand over your cooking oil to a recycling plant making bio-fuels.

Stagecoach, Scotland's largest transport company, booked so much success with this green scheme in the past six months, that it is now embarking on a drive to become completely carbon neutral by the end of this year.

Before January 2009, the company will have planted more than 140,000 trees on a plot of land of 60 hectares called Buccleuch Woodlands estates, which is in Southern Scotland. Stagecoach says that the trees will offset all the CO2 produced by the Fife to Edinburgh network of buses until 2013.

This bus network transports 2.4 million passengers a year. For the past six months, Stagecoach has been running eight buses on bio-fuels made from used cooking oil. That project has the makings of a true bartering scheme; in exchange for used cooking oil, passengers get a reduction on travel fares. The scheme is organized at Ayrshire Council recycling plant and has been met with tremendous enthusiasm of the population. Over 21 tonnes of used cooking oil was handed, marking an 100 percent increase over a period of six months.

Global Trees, a Scottish charity, will take care of the trees planted in the Buccleuch Woodlands and the project has been verified by Forest Carbon. Species planted will include conifers and a range of broadleafs and native woodlands.

© M Smith (Veshengro), June 2008