The word ‘sustainable’ can ring hollow. Like ‘the environment’ and ‘the people’, ‘sustainable’ is an easy thing to say without meaning much. One of my most loyal blog followers, eqfe, has commented a few times about my ‘sustainable’ tag here. He has a point!
So I’m thinking about biofuels. These are fuels made from organisms, whether large or small. All organisms can breed, so in that sense, biofuels are renewable. But what harm do they do? Are any kinds of biofuel sustainable in a way that means anything? I’ve written before about sustainability for farming and food.
Today my fellow blogger narhvalur points out some biofuel news which sheds light (pun intentional.) Here it is. Barbara Lewis at PlanetArk reports that the European Parliament’s environment committee has voted to limit the use of crop-based biofuels. Ms Lewis explains why that kind of biofuels is ‘increasingly seen as doing the planet more harm than good.’
Here’s what goes wrong with crop-based biofuels. Land that could be used to grow or gather food for people gets used to grow food for cars. Maize (corn, Zea mays), oil palm (Elaeis guineensis), oilseed rape (rapeseed, canola, Brassica napus). The fancy name for that kind of going-wrong is ‘indirect land-use change’ (ILUC). Another blogger, Sara Fazal, summed it up starkly as ‘Starving Poor, Racing Cars’.
Because of these kinds of thinking, for several years there’s been concern about ILUC in Europe and on our trading partners’ land. But let’s not get carried away. For biofuels as for genetic modification and other kinds of biotech, this isn’t a simple good/bad argument.
Ms Lewis tells us that advanced or ‘second-generation’ biofuels may provide a better way forward. ‘Made from waste or agricultural residues rather than food crops, these are seen as the most sustainable type of biofuel, but are still at an early stage of commercialisation.’ This could mean little organisms or even littler ones. It could be farmed insects. Here’s some science about insects for biodiesel production. It could be farmed algae. I’ve told you before that I think algal biofuels are exciting.
Meanwhile we have crop-based biofuels. For those kinds of biofuel in Europe, the Fat Lady isn’t singing yet. Even the European Parliament’s environment committee vote hasn’t yet led to a change in the law. There’ll be another vote in September and then we can expect more wrangling between member states.
[Edit] A few days after I wrote this post, narhvalur alerted me to more biofuel news. In the States, the home of crop-based biofuels, people who make these fuels are now to obey the same rules on carbon emissions as everybody else.