Biofuels are very much in the news today. They are considered one of the main responses to diminishing oil stocks and the high price of gasoline. They are considered eco friendly and a weapon against climate change. But the debate on such biofuels is not all one way. There are many voices questioning the wisdom of the growing use of plants as a means of producing alternative fuels.
Biofuel Use
The use of biofuels over the last two decades has increased dramatically. In the Annual Energy Outlook 2008 by the US EIA ethanol use grows from 5.6 billion gallons in 2006 to 23.9 billion gallons in 2030—about 16 percent of total gasoline consumption by volume. The European Union in its green paper has called for biofuels to account for 20% of gasoline use by 2020. The Ministry for Energy in Thailand proposes phasing out all Octane 95 gasoline to be replaced by E10 in the next two years. The same trend in biofuel use is seen throughout the world.
Proponents of biofuels claim many advantages of replacing fossil fuels with ethanol and biodiesel, but there is a large dissenting voice out there also.
Proven Technology
One of the earliest advantages cited by advocates of biofuels is that the technology is already here. There is no need to invent a new type of auto engine to use ethanol or biodiesel. At worst small modifications are all that is needed. Many experts disagree. They say that as alcohol is soluble in both gasoline and water, moisture is absorbed by the biofuel and will lead to high maintenance costs over the lifetime of the car and biodiesel has a higher corrosive effect on parts than gasoline based diesel.
Carbon Neutrality
In the fight against greenhouse gas emissions, the main advantage cited for biofuels was their carbon neutrality. Any carbon dioxide released by their combustion was already taken from the atmosphere by their growth. Critics point out that this simplistic formula does not take into account the emissions created by the need to transport, process and fertilize such crops.
Biodiversity
Critics also point out that from an environmental point of view the big issue with growing crops for biofuels is biodiversity. Much of the western world's farmland already consists of identikit fields of mono cultured crops, and a major switch to biofuel crops will reduce the habitat for animals and wild plants still further. Also the developing world will be tempted to replace their rain forests with palm oil plantations.
Land Use
Another problem with biofuels is the amount of land needed to produce the plants to process into biofuels. The targets set by both the United States and Europe cannot be met by the available land mass in these areas. U.S. Agriculture Department studies of ethanol production from corn find that an acre of corn yields about 139 bushels which would give about 250 gallons of ethanol. This means that using the entire 300 million acres of U.S. cropland for corn-based ethanol production would meet about 15 percent of the demand. These areas would have to import a lot of the raw materials from the third world.
Food Shortage
In 2007 the International Food Policy Research Institute estimated that the price of basic staples will increase 20 to 33 percent by 2010 and 26 to 135 percent by 2020. As is proved by the huge price rise in basic foodstuffs since the beginning of 2008, that estimate has been proved to drastically underestimate the problem. A lot of the food shortages and food price rises being experienced in Haiti, Malaysia, Thailand and large parts of the developed world is being put down to the switch from planting for food to planting for fuel.
Irrespective of these concerns, biofuels will continue to feature in the fight against greenhouse gas emissions and the rising price of fossil fuels, but they will also continue to cause controversy among the environmentally aware.
