CONGRESSMAN [Roilo] Golez’s concern that biofuels will eat into food security — specifically, “making beer more expensive” — strains credulity.
Couldn’t he at least think of other, more plausible reasons besides worrying about a more expensive alcoholic drink?
– Perla Limbaga Manapol, Banga, Aklan, Philippines (via e-mail)
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December 22nd, 2007 at 6:08 pm
Here’s an article on Jatropha that came out in Reuters:
Toxic jatropha not magic biofuel crop, experts warn
GUANGZHOU, China, Sept 12 (Reuters) - Oilseed plant jatropha does not offer an easy answer to biofuels problems as some countries hope, because it can be toxic and yields are unreliable, experts and industry officials warned on Wednesday.
The woody plant can grow on barren, marginal land, and so is increasingly popular in countries such as China that are keen to boost biofuels output but nervous about food security.
But its nuts and leaves are toxic, requiring careful handling by farmers and at crushing plants, said experts at an oils and fats conference.
In addition, it is a labour-intensive crop as each fruit ripens at a different time and needs to be harvested separately. Its productivity is also low and has yet to be stabilised.
M. R. Chandran, adviser to the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, told Reuters it would take five years of intensive research before jatropha could achieve productivity that would make its cultivation economically viable. The oil yield of the plant, originating in Africa and still largely a wild species, is less than 2 tonnes per hectare with large swings from year to year.
An engineer specialising in oil and fat processing plants, including for biodiesel production, said special facilities were needed for crushing jatropha nuts as they could produce a toxic vapour.
The engineer, who declined to be named, said his company hoped to seal a deal with a private investor to build one of the world’s first large-scale jatropha-based biodiesel plants in China’s southern province of Yunnan before the end of this year.
December 22nd, 2007 at 5:58 pm
Here’s an article quoting Nobel Laureate Paul Crutzen, one of the world’s respected experts on global warming:
Nobel scientist in biofuel warning
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Last Modified: 13 Dec 2007
Source: PA News
A Nobel Prize-winning scientist has warned that switching from fossil fuels to biofuels could do the planet more harm than good.
Prof Paul Crutzen calculated the global warming effects of the fertiliser needed to grow energy crops like biodiesel and bioethanol were much worse than has been estimated.
He believes a larger proportion than thought of the nitrogen in fertilisers is converted into nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas, New Scientist magazine reported.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has suggested that 1-2% of nitrogen added to fields becomes nitrous oxide.
But Prof Crutzen and his colleagues calculated the true figure was closer to 3-5% - enough to negate the savings in carbon dioxide emissions made by switching from fossil fuels.
They estimated that biodiesel made from rapeseed was the least efficient biofuel, potentially having a significantly greater warming effect than fossil fuels.
Only bioethanol made from sugar cane was clearly more beneficial to the fight against climate change, they found.
Prof Crutzen, of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, Germany, won the 1995 Nobel Prize for chemistry for his work on the threat to the ozone layer.
Prof Crutzen told New Scientist: “Here and there the numbers may change. But the principle doesn’t.
At present about 12 million hectares - or around 1% of the world’s fields - are devoted to energy crops.
December 22nd, 2007 at 5:53 pm
this is Roilo golez. So that readers will have a full appreciation of my proposal to review the Philippine biofuels program, here’s a copy of my House Resolution No. 376 entitled “RESOLUTION
DIRECTING THE COMMITTEE ON ECOLOGY, COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND THE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE AND FOOD TO CONDUCT AN INQUIRY, IN AID OF LEGISLATION, ON THE CURRENT BIOFUELS PROGRAM AND REVIEW ITS IMPACT ON ENERGY SECURITY, CARBON EMISSIONS, GLOBAL WARMING AND FOOD SECURITY”
Republic of the Philippines
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Quezon City, Metro Manila
FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
First Regular Session
House Resolution No. 376
Introduced by the Honorable ROILO GOLEZ
RESOLUTION
DIRECTING THE COMMITTEE ON ECOLOGY, COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND THE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE AND FOOD TO CONDUCT AN INQUIRY, IN AID OF LEGISLATION, ON THE CURRENT BIOFUELS PROGRAM AND REVIEW ITS IMPACT ON ENERGY SECURITY, CARBON EMISSIONS, GLOBAL WARMING AND FOOD SECURITY
WHEREAS, Congress passed on 12 January 2007 into law Republic Act No. 9367 otherwise known as the “Biofuels Act of 2006”;
WHEREAS, Section 2 of the Biofuels Act of 2006 declared that “It is the policy of the State to reduce dependence on imported fuels with due regard to the protection of public health, the environment, and natural ecosystems consistent with the country’s sustainable economic growth that would expand opportunities for livelihood by mandating the use of biofuels as a measure to:
a. utilize indigenous renewable and sustainably-sourced clean energy sources to reduce dependence on imported oil;
b. mitigate toxic and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions;
c. rural employment and income; and
d. the availability of alternative and renewable clean energy without any detriment to the natural ecosystem, biodiversity and food reserves of the country.”
WHEREAS, Section 4 of the Biofuels Act mandated the phase out of the use of harmful gasoline additives and/or oxygenates within six months from the effectivity of the said law, and Section 5 of said law instead mandated the mandatory use of biofuels within a specified timeframe, thus:
“5.1 Within two years from the effectivity of this Act, at least five percent (5%) bioethanol shall comprise the annual total volume of gasoline fuel actually sold and distributed by each and every oil company in the country, subject to the requirement that all bioethanol blended gasoline shall contain a minimum of five percent (5%) bioethanol fuel by volume: Provided, That the ethanol blend conforms to PNS.”
“5.2 Within four years from the effectivity of this Act, the NBB created under this Act is empowered to determine the feasibility and thereafter recommend to DOE to mandate a minimum of ten percent (10%) blend of bioethanol by volume into all gasoline fuel distributed and sold by each and every oil company in the country.”
“In the event of supply shortage of locally-produced bioethanol during the four-year period, oil companies shall be allowed to import bioethanol but only to the extent of the shortage as may be determined by the NBB.”
“5.3 Within three months from the effectivity of this Act, a minimum of one percent (1%) biodiesel by volume shall be blended into all diesel engine fuels sold in the country: Provided, That the biodiesel blend conforms to PNS for biodiesel.”
“Within two years from the effectivity of this Act, the NBB created under this Act is empowered to determine the feasibility and thereafter recommend to DOE to mandate a minimum of two percent (2%) blend of biodiesel by volume which may be increased taking into account considerations including but not limited to domestic supply and availability of locally-sourced biodiesel component.”
WHEREAS, biofuel industries are becoming established in many developing countries, to wit:
1. Countries such as India and China are developing both bioethanol and biodiesel programs;
2. India is extending plantations of jatropha, an oil-producing tree that is used in biodiesel production. The Indian sugar ethanol program sets a target of 5% bioethanol incorporation into transport fuel;
3. China is a major bioethanol producer and aims to incorporate 15% bioethanol into transport fuels by 2010;
4. The Philippines has major additional biofuel-related investments such as
(a) Coromoto of Spain is looking at investing some $100 million in a biodiesel plant in Southern Bukidnon;
(b) A Japanese firm, JGC, is also studying the possibility of putting up a P2-billion biofuel processing plant in San Mariano, Isabela,
(c) $200-million distillery/jatropha plant feedstock production of Bionor, a subsidiary of publicly-listed CIE Automotive of Spain, for a 100,000 hectare jatropha plantation in South Palawan;
(d) $175 milllion Abengoa Bionergy of Spain in Ozamis City;
(e) Green Fuels Inc., to invest $150 million and open 10,000 jobs in a biofuels processing plant in Davao Oriental.
WHEREAS, biofuels aim to be carbon neutral, which means that:
1. The carbon released during the use of the fuel, e.g. through burning to power transport or generate electricity, is reabsorbed and balanced by the carbon absorbed by new plant growth;
2. Carbon neutral fuels lead to no net increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, so that global warming need not get any worse.
WHEREAS, in practice, biofuels are not carbon neutral because energy is required to grow crops and process them into fuel; examples of energy use during the production of biofuels include: fertilizer manufacture, fuel used to power machinery, and fuel used to transport crops and fuels to and from biofuel processing plants;
WHEREAS, the amount of fuel used during biofuel production has a large impact on the overall greenhouse gas emissions savings achieved by biofuels.
WHEREAS, in October 2007, doubt has been thrown on the advantages of biofuel by one of the world’s global warming experts Nobel Laureate Paul Crutzen who says that the advantages of reduced carbon dioxide emissions are more than offset by increased nitrous oxide emissions since Nitrous oxide is deemed to be both a potent greenhouse gas and a destroyer of atmospheric ozone;
WHEREAS, it is necessary that the carbon emissions produced by biofuels are calculated using a technique called Life Cycle Analysis (LCA), that is:
1. Using a “cradle to grave” or “well to wheels” approach to calculate the total amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases emitted during biofuel production, from putting seed in the ground to using the fuel in cars and trucks;
2. Many different LCAs have been done for different biofuels, with widely differing results;
3. The majority of LCA studies show that biofuels provide significant greenhouse gas emissions savings when compared to fossil fuels such as petroleum and diesel. Therefore, using biofuels to replace a proportion of the fossil fuels that are burned for transportation can reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions.
4. This does assume however that the land used for growing the crops would alternatively be desert or paved area. If the land was previously a (tropical rain-) forest, the carbon absorption of this forest should be deducted from the greenhouse gas savings. This implies that the net effect of burning bio-fuels is an increase in greenhouse gasses. This effect should be incorporated in the LCA, to get a proper overview of the total net effect. Using waste material from plantation forests on previous agricultural land could be carbon positive, due to the carbon stored below ground in the root systems.
5. The aforementioned 2007 study by scientists from Britain, U.S., Germany, Switzerland and including Professor Paul Crutzen, who won a Nobel Prize for his work on ozone, has reported that measurements of emissions from the burning of biofuels derived from rapeseed and corn have been found to produce more greenhouse gas emissions than they save.
WHEREAS, the claim that biofuels result in emissions savings has also been critiqued on the ground that it overlooks the ‘displacement’ effects of large-scale biofuel production, in terms of its direct and indirect role in promoting land use changes and soil carbon losses.
WHEREAS, bioethanol is the most common biofuel worldwide:
1. This alcohol fuel is produced by fermentation of sugars derived from wheat, corn, sugar beet and sugar cane;
2. The production methods used are enzymatic digestion (to release sugars from stored starches e.g. from wheat and corn), fermentation of the sugars, distillation and drying;
3. Bioethanol can be used in petrol engines as a replacement for gasoline; it can be mixed with gasoline to any percentage;
4. All petrol engines can run on blends of up to 15% bioethanol with petroleum/gasoline. For higher percentage blends, engine modifications are needed. Many car manufacturers are now producing flex-fuel vehicles, which can run on any combination of bioethanol and petrol, up to 100% bioethanol.
.
WHEREAS, the worldwide biofuels program has generated a “food vs. fuel” debate, to wit:
1. Due to rising demand for biofuels, farmers worldwide have an increased economic incentive to grow crops for biofuel production instead of food production;
2. Without political intervention, this could lead to reduced food production and increased food prices and inflation;
3. The impacts of this would be greatest on poorer countries or countries that rely on imported food for their subsistence;
4. In early 2007 there were a number of reports linking stories as diverse as food riots in Mexico due to rising prices of corn for tortillas, a basic food item in Mexico;
5. It has also affected the beer industry in the U.S. when the barley area was cut in order to increase corn production thus increasing the price of Barley which is a very important ingredient in beer making;
WHEREAS, a noted environmental campaigner, George Monbiot, has argued in the British newspaper The Guardian for a 5-year freeze on biofuels while their impact on poor communities and the environment is assessed;
WHEREAS, the most recent UN report on biofuel also raises issues regarding food security and biofuel production: Jean Ziegler, the UN Special Rapporteur on food, concluded that while the argument for biofuels in terms of energy efficiency and climate change are legitimate, the effects for the world’s hungry of transforming wheat and maize crops into biofuel are “absolutely catastrophic,” and terms such use of arable land a “crime against humanity,” compelling Ziegler to call for a 5-year moratorium on biofuel production;
WHEREAS, a report prepared by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for a recent Round Table on Sustainable Development questions the benefits of first generation biofuels and concludes that governments should scrap mandatory targets and submit its summary findings as follows: The rush to energy crops threatens to cause food shortages and damage to biodiversity with limited benefits;
WHEREAS, the OECD, an international organization of thirty (30) developed countries, has since 1948 been one of the world’s most respected international organizations as it “provides a setting where governments can compare policy experiences, seek answers to common problems, identify good practice and coordinate domestic and international policies” and the OECD has a broad mandate that covers all economic, environmental and social issues and as such its findings on biofuels should be taken seriously in defining government policy on biofuels;
WHEREAS, the OECD study on biofuels was released in September 2007, during their most recent Round Table on Sustainable Development, and thus, introduced scientific, environmental and food security issues that were not considered during the crafting of the “Biofuels Act of 2006”;
WHEREAS, huge tracts of lands measured by the hundreds of thousands of hectares, have been allocated for use in the farming of various varieties of plants for use in biofuels production, which by their mere size will have an impact, positive or negative, on the environment and national land use policy;
NOW, THEREFORE, be it resolved as it is hereby resolved, by the House of Representatives to direct the Committee on Ecology, Committee on Energy and the Committee on Agriculture and Food to conduct an inquiry, in aid of legislation, on the current biofuels program and to review its impact on energy security, carbon emissions, global warming and food security.
Adopted,
ROILO GOLEZ
December 22nd, 2007 at 11:05 am
chris galon,
The key here is that it grows on barren and marginal land, plant it barren land so as these areas will have some use for it. Cross plant these with nitrogenous shrubs so that no fertilizer is needed. This is the reason why Jatropha wouldn’t compete with food sources and security, because it has to be planted in barren areas which would not be planted by food crops anyway. Proper spacing along with cross planting of nitrogenous crops would prevent too much intensive care for the plant.
Given the fact that barren areas is actually producing NOTHING, might as well plant something that can produce 2 tonnes or less of the said oil. How many liters of processed biodiesel can be produced by these 2 tonnes? Multiply these by the current cost of diesel? Compare this with zero earnings of barren land.
As for processing facilities, that is why there is need for investment for this; much better than giving P 500,000 per government official and Congressmen for political favors and also much more sound rather than Congressmen giving themselves P 200,000 as “bonus”.
The food security issue in Mexico is caused by using converting foodstuff like corn into ethanol. We need not do this, other parallel sources of biofuel especially biodiesel can still be found.
December 22nd, 2007 at 2:19 am
If those from the provinces are out of their minds for coming to the big city then perhaps mbm is now in the province to replace those insanes that left the provinces. Then he could help people realize that there is plenty of opportunity in the province and regarding of who leads the country if we remain idle and believe that our leaders will do the things for us to be successful nothing will happen to us. It is really a very sad thing to hear someone pointing to someone as out of mind when he or she has not proven anything to them. In short those from the provinces deserves to experience how to be in a city but yet they dont deserve to be called out of their minds just because a certain program (livelihood) is believed very much feasible there. These things are just mere theories and still to be proven especially this jathropa which can poison a whole river with its rotten fruits. I should know and many can attest to that. If there is a gold mine in the province then you might migrate and replace those who are out of their minds and leaving the province.