Biodiesel

Why would Biofuels Interest Druids?

As a religion based upon reverence for nature biofuels should be something we consider carefully. Are biofuels more honorable for use to use than conventional diesel made from ancient dead sea creatures?

Firstly, what are biofuels?

Biofuels are any kind of fuel made from living things, or from the waste they produce. This includes wood, wood chippings, wood pellets, straw, methane from animals' excrement and ethanol, diesel or other liquid fuels made from processing plant material or waste oil.

In recent years, the term "biofuel" has come to mean ethanol, diesel or other liquid fuels made from processing plant material or waste oil. Ethanol and bio-diesel are made from crops including corn, sugarcane and rapeseed. Bio-ethanol is usually mixed with petrol, while biodiesel is either used on its own or in a mixture.

Biofuel can be made from recycling vegetable (cooking) oils. If you run a car on diesel, it is possible to change over gradually but effectively to biodiesil. Some people are collecting waste cooking oil from shops and restaurants, and with the right filters and storage facilities, producing a fuel suitable for use in their cars. Older cars won't manage it, but the newer ones will. Tonnes of waste oil are thrown away by restaurants and companies, this could be salvaged and used for fuel.

However if you're buying biofuel at the pump, it will have been made from bioethanol not recycled oils.

What are the issues for Druids?

Any fuel, whether its diesel from oil or diesel from plants, has been created by mans intention. The inherent intention, the spirit of the oil or the plant, is gone. It has been transformed into something different. It may not be less sacred than the spirit holding its own intention, but as a druid, we make our relationships based upon the thing itself, the process it has been through and the affects this has on the environment we hold sacred. They are all a part of its song.

So what is the song of a biofuel and what is the effect of biofuels on the environment?

Air ...
In principle, biofuels are a way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions compared to conventional transport fuels. Burning the fuels releases carbon dioxide; but growing the plants absorbs a comparable amount of the gas from the atmosphere.

However, because energy is used in farming, processing and transporting the crops, biofuels can be as polluting as petroleum-based fuels, depending on where they are grown, what is grown and how it is treated.

A recent UK government publication declared that biofuels reduced emissions by 50-60% compared to fossil fuels. Other reports claim that using biofuel reduces total emissions of carbon dioxide by only about 13% because of the pollution caused by the production process, and because ethanol gets only about 70% of the mileage of petrol.

Biodiesel can be less polluting than ordinary diesel :

• sulphur emissions (causing acid rain) are eliminated hydrocarbons (causing local smog and ozone) average 68% lower
• carbon monoxide are on average 44% lower
• particulate matter (the pollution breathed in) average 40% lower
• levels of PAH and nitrited PAH compounds are reduced by 75-85% with the exception of benzo(a)anthracene which reduced by around 50%.
• 2-nitrofluorene and 1-nitropyrene are reduce by 90%, with other nPAH compounds reduced to trace levels.

However nitrogen oxide emissions (causing local smog and ozone) slightly increase or marginally decrease depending on the engine, with the average increase being around 6%.

Many biofuel cops are grown on newly deforested land. As the forests are burned, both the trees and the peat they sit on are turned into carbon dioxide. A report by the Dutch consultancy Delft Hydraulics shows that every tonne of palm oil results in 33 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions, or 10 times as much as petroleum produces. That means that Biodiesel from palm oil releases 10 times as much (global warming causing) carbon dioxide as ordinary diesel.

Land ...
With so much land already intensively fields of monocultured crops, a growth in biofuels will lead to more land used for intensive crop production. Intensive farms don't support wildlife and they further reduce the land space that allows expression of the wildness of earth.

If biofuels are adopted they will reduce habitat for animals and wild plants still further. What kind of habitat is at risk? Sadly it's the rainforests. Brazil leads the world in production and use of biofuels. It makes about 16 billion litres per year of ethanol from its sugarcane industry.

The British government's Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation requires 5% biofuels sold at the pump by 2010 to be biofuels. The European Union recently has issued a directive calling for biofuels to meet 5.75% of transportation fuel needs by 2010. Meeting the 5.75 % target would require, according to one authoritative study, a quarter of the EU's arable land. Thus most of the fuel that Europeans use will be imported, from Brazil, where the Amazon is being burned to plant more sugar and soybeans, and Southeast Asia, where oil palm plantations are destroying the rainforest habitat of orangutans and many other species. Species will die for us to keep on driving.

Many are calling biofuels "deforestation diesel", the opposite of the environmentally friendly fuel people desire. Sugarcane producers are moving into rare scrubland habitats (the cerrado) in Brazil, and soya farmers are ripping up the Amazon rainforests. President Bush has just signed a biofuel agreement with President Lula, so it's likely to become a lot worse. Indigenous people in South America, Asia and Africa are starting to complain about incursions onto their land by fuel planters. A petition launched by a group called biofuelwatch, begging western governments to stop, has been signed by campaigners from 250 groups.

Pollution ...
If ethanol is imported from the US, it will likely come from maize, which uses fossil fuels at every stage in the production process, from cultivation using fertilisers and tractors, to processing and transportation. Growing maize appears to use 30% more energy than the finished fuel produces, and leaves eroded soils and polluted waters behind.

Hunger...
The grain required to fill the petrol tank of a Range Rover with ethanol is sufficient to feed one person per year. Assuming the petrol tank is refilled every two weeks, the amount of grain required to fuel one car would feed 30 people for a year.

If increased proportions of food crops such as corn or soy are used for fuel, food prices go up. Although just 10% of the world's sugar harvest being converted to ethanol, the price of sugar has doubled. The price of palm oil has increased 15% over the past year. Since the beginning of last year, the price of maize has doubled. The price of wheat has also reached a 10-year high. Global stockpiles of both wheat and maize have reached 25-year lows.

Already there have been food riots in Mexico and reports that the poor are feeling the strain all over the world. The US department of agriculture warns that "if we have a drought or a very poor harvest, we could see the sort of volatility we saw in the 1970s, and if it does not happen this year, we are also forecasting lower stockpiles next year".

According to the UN food and agriculture organisation, the main reason is the demand for ethanol; the alcohol used for motor fuel, which can be made from maize and wheat.

Farmers will respond to increased prices by planting more, but it is unlikely they can overtake the booming demand for biofuel. If they can, it will be by ploughing up virgin habitat.

Corruption...
George Monbiot explains that governments are using biofuel to tackle global warming despite knowing they cause more harm than good. In the recent budget, Gordon Brown announced that he would extend the tax rebate for biofuels until 2010. From next year all suppliers in the UK will have to ensure that 2.5% of the fuel they sell is made from plants, if not, they must pay a penalty of 15p a litre. The obligation rises to 5% in 2010. By 2050, the government hopes that 33% of our fuel will come from crops. Last month George Bush announced that he would quintuple the US target for biofuels: by 2017 they should be supplying 24% of the nation's transport fuel.

However governments already know that biofuel is worse for the planet than petroleum. The UN has just published a report suggesting that 98% of the natural rainforest in Indonesia will be degraded or gone by 2022. Just five years ago, the same agencies predicted that this wouldn't happen until 2032. But they reckoned without the planting of palm oil to turn into biodiesel for the European market. This is now the main cause of deforestation there and it is likely soon to become responsible for the extinction of the orang-utan in the wild. Sadly there are similar impacts all over the world.

The British government is well aware that there's a problem. On his blog last year the environment secretary David Miliband noted that palm oil plantations "are destroying 0.7% of the Malaysian rainforest each year, reducing a vital natural resource (and in the process, destroying the natural habitat of the orang-utan). It is all connected."

The reason governments are so enthusiastic about biofuels is that they don't upset drivers. They appear to reduce the amount of carbon our cars emit, without requiring new taxes. It's an illusion sustained by the fact that only the emissions produced at home count towards our national total. The forest clearance in Malaysia doesn't increase our official UK impact by a gram.

In February the European commission was faced with a straight choice between fuel efficiency and biofuels. It had intended to tell car companies that the average carbon emission from new cars in 2012 would be 120 grams per kilometre. After heavy lobbying by car manufacturers, the government caved in and raised the limit to 130 grams. It announced that it would make up the shortfall by increasing the contribution from biofuel.

The British government says it "will require transport fuel suppliers to report on the carbon saving and sustainability of the biofuels they supply". But it can't, its consultants have already shown that if it tries to impose wider environmental standards on biofuels, it will fall foul of world trade rules. And even "sustainable" biofuels - not grown on deforested land - merely occupy the space that other crops filled, meaning the crops are grown on newly deforested land or other wildlife habitats.

Biotechnology ...
Scientists do not yet have a full understanding of the workings of photosynthesis, the process by which plants use solar energy to absorb carbon dioxide and build carbohydrates.

Biotechnology plans to make important contributions to the biofuel industry. According to the science journal Nature, recombinant technology is already available that could enhance ethanol yield and improve bioprocessing efficiency at the refinery. The Swiss biotech firm Syngenta is developing a genetically engineered maize that can help convert itself into ethanol by growing a particular enzyme. Others are designing trees that have less lignin, (the strength-giving substance that enables them to stand upright), because lignin makes it more difficult to convert the tree's cellulose into ethanol. Environmentalists are worried that these altered trees will cross-breed with wild trees.

Public stake ...
Biofuels if adopted, will make many people into billionaires. So unsurprisingly the technology is entirely in the hands of the private sector. Many of the social and environmental impacts of bioenergy are not priced in the market, so won't be valued. Calculations of energy return on investment need to include environmental impacts on soil, water, climate change and ecosystem services.

The public sector needs to be involved, biofuels should be openly debated but governments seem reluctant to take on multinationals.

What Can You Do?

Biofuel Song
In conclusion, it doesn't resonate well with the song of forest, habitat and wild spaces. In fact, if biofuels are widely adopted you may have to choose between them.

Biofuels could contribute to energy and environmental goals, if they come from recycled oil not crops, but only if we increase our energy conservation, stop eating grains and move to a forest based diet, improve energy efficiency in production and transport of biofuels, make a genuine commitment to biodiversity conservation and most of all we each decided to use less energy, drive less, walk and cycle more, get the bus and train.

We will have to inconvenience ourselves if we want to keep listening to forest songs.

(References and quotes taken from Jeffrey A McNeely chief scientist of IUCN, the World Conservation Union, www.monbiot.com and news.bbc.co.uk)