ENVIRONMENT WATCH

The biofuels myth
P. Julian

Biofuels are not exactly clean and green. It is true that photosynthesis performed by fuel crops removes greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and can reduce fossil fuel consumption. But when other factors – from land clearing to consumption – are considered, the picture changes somehow.

“The moderate emission savings are outweighed by far greater emissions from deforestation, burning, peat drainage, cultivation and soil-carbon losses,” says Eric Holt-Gimenez, executive director of the Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy.

Every ton of palm oil generates 33 tons of carbon dioxide emissions – 10 times more than petroleum. Tropical forests cleared for sugar cane ethanol emit 50 percent more greenhouse gases than the production and use of the same amount of gasoline.

Industrialized countries started the biofuels boom by demanding ambitious renewable-fuel targets, he says. These fuels are to provide 5.75 percent of Europe 's transport power by 2010 and 10 percent by 2020. The United States wants 35 billion gallons a year.

These targets far exceed the agricultural capacities of the industrial North. Europe would need to plant 70 percent of its farmland with fuel crops. The entire corn and soy harvest of the United States would need to be processed as ethanol and biodiesel.

Converting most arable land to fuel crops would destroy the food systems of the North, so the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development countries are looking to developing countries to meet demand.

“The rapid capitalization and concentration of power within the biofuels industry is extreme,” says Gimenez. “Over the past three years, venture capital investment in biofuels has increased by 800 percent. Private investment is swamping public research institutions.”

He adds: “Behind the scenes, under the noses of most national antitrust laws, giant oil, grain, auto and genetic engineering corporations are forming partnerships, and they are consolidating the research, production, processing and distribution chains of food and fuel systems under one industrial roof.

“Biofuels producers will be dependent on a cabal of companies for their seed, inputs, services, processing and sale.”

Gimenez believes that limits must be placed on the biofuels industry: “The North cannot shift the burden of overconsumption to the South because the tropics have more sunlight, rain and arable land. If biofuels are to be forest- and food-friendly, the grain, cane and palm oil industries need to be regulated, and not piecemeal.”

The term "biofuels" suggests renewable abundance: clean, green, sustainable assurance about technology and progress.

This pure image allows industry, politicians, the World Bank, the United Nations and even the International Panel on Climate Change to present fuels made from corn, sugarcane, soy and other crops as the next step in a smooth transition from peak oil to a yet-to-be-defined renewable fuel economy.

But in reality, Gimenez points out, biofuel draws its power from cornucopian myths and directs attention away from economic interests that would benefit from the transition, while avoiding discussion of the growing North-South food and energy imbalance.

“They obscure the political-economic relationships between land, people, resources and food, and fail to help us understand the profound consequences of the industrial transformation of our food and fuel systems,” he says.