Bio-fuels, wait a minute
In February of this year a sudden rise in the price of tortillas and tacos enlisted heavy protest from Mexicans. In just two months prices soared by 200%. The reason why the worldwide price of maize is so high is because there is growing interest in maize as the raw material for ethanol, a substitute for petrol. What environmental organisations had predicted would happen, has happened: supermarkets and petrol suppliers have become competitors [16]. The production of first generation bio-fuels is putting pressure on the production of food crops.
The demand for sustainable transport fuels has increased strongly, especially in Europe and the United States. The large producers of first generation bio-fuels are developing countries. The
circumstances there, which I shall further expand on below, will be viewed as fixed. The debate as to whether or not the socio-economic circumstances in such areas should be changed is not the topic of discussion in this particular essay. What I want to examine is the part that the Netherlands should play in the next ten years in the field of bio-fuels. This essay will focus predominantly on the matter of the use of bio-fuels as the transport fuels of choice for and not for use in power stations. However, the debate concerning the use of bio-fuels for electricity generation is one that partly overlaps with that of the fuel for transport discussion.
What are first generation bio-fuels and is there such a thing as second generation bio-fuels? First generation bio-fuels (FGBs) are derived from food crops such as maize, sugar cane, soya and rape seed. Examples of these are the methyl esters of fatty acids known as ‘bio-diesel’, or bio-ethanol of the type used in Brazil. Second generation bio-fuels (SGBs) are extracted from non-foodstuff crops. The raw materials for these fuels are the waste products of the above-mentioned kinds of crops. Second generation bio-fuels are not yet available but one such example is that of BTL (biomass-to-liquids) fuel developed by, for instance, Shell and Uhde [14].
One possible disadvantage of first generation bio-fuels has already been indicated. The raw materials for this fuel are food crops. Therefore a choice has to be made between fuel and food production. In a world where 850 million people are underfed [18] that is not (read: is) an easy
decision. There are also other disadvantages attached to the use of FGBs. In this essay I shall explain why the Netherlands should not use first generation bio-fuels to replace fossil fuels.
Sustainable fuels
Bio-fuels are used to replace fossil fuels. Quite why countries are so keen to replace fossil fuels; in order to reduce the emission of CO2 or to become less dependent on their depleting or
imported oil sources is something I shall not pass comment on here.
What is often said of bio-fuels is that they represent the sustainable counterpart to fossil fuels; their net CO2 emission level is indeed lower and they are created from renewable sources. I would like
to define the concept of sustainability more clearly by quoting the Brundtland definition which asserts that: “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” The three basic premises for sustainable development (in random order) are: healthy economic development; respect for the cultural values of peoples together with consideration for the social consequences of developments and, finally, respect for the natural supporting capacity of our planet. In the following sections I shall demonstrate why it is that the present bio-fuels are not sustainable.
The price of bio-fuel
The fact that first generation bio-fuels compete with food production is something that has already been mentioned in the introduction, even though – as in the case of American maize – this involves bio-fuel production on a relatively small-scale [15]. No country, with the exception of Brazil, uses more than a few percent of bio-fuel for its road traffic. Worldwide the present consumption level amounts to 1.2% for bio-ethanol and 0.1% for bio-diesel [1] and yet the channelling of food crops into fuel production, as in the United States, has had a marked effect on food prices. Taking Brazil and Malaysia, world market leaders in the generation of bio-ethanol and bio-diesel, I would just like to contemplate what would be the consequences of large-scale production of first generation bio-fuels; consequences for which the Netherlands would be responsible if it is importing bio-fuel from those two countries [6].
poverty level. Brazil uses a mere 0.7% (60,000 km²) of its total surface area to cultivate sugar cane for the production of alcohol. A further 500,000 km² of arable land remains available.
Other countries are not in a similar position but would like to reap the economic benefits of bio-diesel production, Indonesia and Malaysia being the biggest candidates. Together those countries are responsible for 84% of the world’s palm oil production, a raw material used in the manufacturing of margarine, soap and bio-diesel. In order to create space for palm oil plantations huge tracts of tropical rainforest land are cleared and the timber removed is subsequently burnt. In the process, the damage caused to the environment and to nature is immense while at the same time vast quantities of biomass material is recklessly burnt. Orang-utans in particular are deprived of their habitat but tigers and other creatures are also endangered. In the plantations it is precisely the larger protected species, like the orang-utans and the Sumatran tigers, that are viewed as an inconvenience and aid organisations are often not called upon to relocate such creatures [10][17]. The clearing of tropical rainforests is a serious problem; it is impossible to do this in a sustainable way. Tropical rainforests are hundreds to several thousand years old, which means that when they are destroyed they can ‘never’ be replaced, at least not in terms of the human time-scale.
In the oil palm and sugar cane plantation line worst-case-practice is something that often turns to common-practice. Large quantities of artificial fertilizer are used to boost production whilst
pesticides are used to eradicate unwanted plant growth and animals, such as snakes [4]. These substances pollute the groundwater and constitute a health risk to employees. After the sugar cane has been harvested the stubble in the fields is burnt in preparation for the following season. Such fires are responsible for the formation of huge amounts of CO2 and for smog in surrounding cities. The
waste products emanating from the pressing of palm oil and the refining of sugar cane end up in rivers. That, in turn, gives rise to problems for fishermen, and drinking water supplies are threatened [9]. Ironically such waste could (in the future) easily be used for the production of SGBs.
In the third place, the establishment of plantations often gives rise to friction between the local population and plantation owners. Local inhabitants are usually dependent on the rainforests and rivers for their livelihoods. In order to seize land for plantation purposes wealthy plantation owners either violate the rights of the local people or play off various interested parties against each other. The new companies promise to richly compensate the people living in the region: the plantations will provide employment and the company will serve the community. They promise to provide schools, churches or mosques, first aid posts and similar facilities. Once the plantations have been set up, though, little comes of all the big promises and the local inhabitants find that in the presence of such wealthy companies they are powerless to bring about change [10].
The working conditions for the labourers on the plantations are furthermore atrocious. The work is ponderous, the working conditions are bad and people are paid in proportion to crop yield. In Brazil an estimated 2% of the labourers are under age. Parallel figures for Indonesia and Malaysia are unknown. In Brazil there is a further complication. Whilst the oil palm produces new fruit every week, all year round, there are only a couple of months per year when sugar cane is harvested. The net result is that there is a huge group of seasonal workers [4] thus creating massive temporary unemployment problems in the rural areas where sugar cane is cultivated.
All in all, this looks like a brilliant way of running a business as badly as possible without paying attention to the environment and to social aspects. But in developing countries this is reality. Would it therefore not be better for us to produce the raw materials for bio-fuels ourselves, in the Netherlands and in Europe? In that way there would be a certain degree of protection for the
environment and for people’s working conditions. The European climate is not suitable for the growing of sugar cane and oil palms but bio-ethanol and bio-diesel can also be produced from sugar beet and rape seed. The yields and returns on such crops are much lower and in European countries there is just not enough agricultural land available to grow the vast quantities of biomass products that would be required.
Technology
At this point I would like to say something about the more technical aspects of first and second-generation bio-fuels. If we explore the technological background a little more other drawbacks associated with first generation bio-fuels come to light.
water and ethanol the final step in the process is very energy intensive. Different raw materials lead to different ethanol yields. A certain percentage of the plant matter consists of woody carbohydrates that cannot be converted. The precise levels differ depending on the various sources one consults but for maize it is approximately 2.7 kg/L ethanol and for sugar cane 1.2 kg/L [13]. The sugar cane yield per hectare is much larger than the maize production rate and the by-products (the bagasse) can be used to produce energy. Ultimately that is what makes sugar cane a more attractive raw material.
Bio-diesel is produced from vegetable oils such as palm, rape seed and soya oil. With the help of a catalyst and methanol the fats extracted from those oils are converted into fatty acid methyl esters which, after further purification, can be used in a diesel engine. Originally acids and bases were used as the catalysts, all of gave rise to large amounts of waste. The French company Axens has now commercialised a process that makes use of a heterogeneous catalyst [8] that makes the process more environmentally friendly.
Both fuel types, bio-ethanol and bio-diesel, cannot be directly used in modern engines due to their different physical properties when compared to regular petrol and diesel. Hence the reason that in the Netherlands bio-ethanol is converted into ethyl tertiary butyl ether (ETBE) with the help of 2-methyl-2-propanol which is then mixed into the Euro 95 fuel. Likewise, bio-diesel can be mixed up to a couple of percent without causing damage to the engine. A much bigger problem is the fact that at present the production of FGBs demands more energy than the fuel ultimately contains. Different lifecycle analyses demonstrate that now more fossil fuel is consumed than renewable energy is produced [11].
The second generation of fuels can also be divided into two categories, but second generation bio-fuels are always derived from cellulose-based (woody) biomass. Cellulose cannot be broken down by the usual enzymes. Micro-organisms have been found in the digestive systems of elephants which contain enzymes that can break down cellulose. After the cellulose has been broken into shorter sugar chains the process is the same as that involved in the production of FGBs or the production of beer. The energy-intensive distillation process is also necessary but the rest of the process demands less energy.
A second, other way of turning biomass into useful raw materials is by gasifying the biomass at high temperature in the presence of steam. The products of such gasification are CO and H2; these
molecules are chemical building blocks. These building blocks can be converted into longer chains by means of Fischer-Tropsch synthesis and then turned into both petrol and diesel. The total process is known as the biomass-to-liquids (BTL) process. The resultant fuels are superior to the petrol or diesel extracted from crude oil because the chemical composition can be very closely controlled [12].
In short, it may be said that SGBs provide a number of advantages: cheap raw materials, raw material flexibility, and more efficient use of raw materials and, as a result, a high quality type of fuel as the final product. Cellulose cannot, however, be converted into fermentable sugars on a large scale yet and the technology required to gasify bio-mass has not yet been sufficiently optimised to use in combination with the Fischer-Tropsch process.
We are not there yet
From the facts given above it is clear that first generation bio-fuels do not constitute a good choice when it comes to replacing (a part) of the fossil fuels. Second generation bio-fuels do, by contrast, constitute a good choice as they do not compete with food supply. Secondly, they can also be produced from a whole range of waste products, thus lowering the burden on the environment. As the raw materials are essentially all waste products this establishes a new market for poor farmers.
The only disadvantage of second generation bio-fuels is that they are not yet commercially available. This is because of the high costs of producing SGBs due to the fact that the technology required to produce the fuels is still under development. Producers and researchers expect that it should be possible to commercially produce SGBs within 5 to 10 years. Shell and Choren are at present building a pilot-plant in Freiburg, Germany and expect to have a commercial factory by 2010 with a 200,000 ton/year production capacity. Just to compare, the Total refinery in Vlissingen produces around 4 million tons of diesel and petrol per annum. What emerges from this is that it may never be possible to fully replace fossil fuels with bio-fuels.
matters more complicated than they already are, which is why I want to consider something that is perhaps easier to realise: more economical cars.
This is one of the easiest ways of cutting back on fossil fuel consumption in the transport sector but it has not been fully explored. Especially in the United States this would be particularly beneficial but let us first consider the Netherlands. According to European directives, fuel consumption for private cars must be reduced to 20 km/L and 22 km/L by 2010 for petrol and diesel cars
respectively [3]. If we add to that 5.75%, which corresponds to the targets for bio-fuel use in the Netherlands for 2010 [5][19], then we arrive at 21.2 km/L and 23.3 km/L.
At the moment it is possible to purchase petrol cars with 1 to 21.3 consumption and better, and diesel cars with a level of 1 to 23.3 and better. One only needs go to a car dealership and ask for one. In the case of petrol vehicles it is the Toyota Prius – a hybrid car – that tops the chart with 1 to 23.3 but Citroën, Daihatsu, Peugeot and Opel also produce very economical vehicles. The Smart 450 fortwo also features in both lists [7]. These are all existing cars, one of which is a hybrid, and it is technically feasible to manufacture cars that are even more economical. Already in 2002 Volkswagen had a model on the drawing board that only required 0.9 litres of diesel to go a hundred kilometres. In 2005 the project was abandoned because of the car’s anticipated high production costs. Now, two years on, the company’s new managing-director is reviving the project. The manufacturer expects that within two years the parts costs for the car will have dropped to € 5,000. In 2005 Volkswagen was also forced to stop production of the VW Lupo 3L, with its 1 to 33.3 consumption, because of lack of costumer interest.
Purely from the technological point of view, it would be possible to build cars which greatly exceed 2010 stipulations. Yet there are few cars on the roads that satisfy such norms. This phenomenon is sometimes dubbed eco-schizophrenia. In theory people are interested in driving economical cars but in practice they do not seem so bothered. It must be admitted that the above-mentioned cars do not fall into the “luxury” category, they are compact cars. All the more reason for individuals in prominent positions, like government ministers, to be driven around in a Peugeot 107 or a similarly economical vehicle. The next step is to stimulate car manufacturers to actually start
producing their economical prototype vehicles and to ultimately prohibit cars with a fuel efficiency level that is too low. Finally I would like to return to the matter of the United States where the average fuel consumption for a family car is 1 to 10 [2], which means that the United States can easily reduce their transport fuel consumption with 50% to 70% in the next 15 to 20 years.
So far, the term hybrid has just been mentioned only once. Hybrid cars also constitute a way of improving fuel efficiency. Even though sceptics argue that the production of, for instance, the batteries for such cars is detrimental to the environment, all such negative effects are in the long term cancelled out by their lower fuel consumption. Deploying entirely electric cars or busses (for short distances) would not be a bad idea. A power station with combined heat and power generation facilities (a cogeneration power plant) achieves a total efficiency of 85%-90%. Combined with the efficiency of an average electric engine this gives an efficiency level many times higher than that of an internal combustion engine, which only attains 30%. In neither case can this be termed a full lifecycle analysis or a well-to-wheel efficiency, but the fact that a combustion engine does not have high
performance is generally acknowledged. It thus seems to me that in many respects it is high time to do away with this somewhat antiquated design concept.
At last it should be mentioned that there is a limited supply of chicken manure, wood chippings and other biomass available as waste. If these reserves were taken to the power stations to be
combusted they would be usefully utilized. Essent does this, for instance, at its Cuijk Power Station in North Brabant to generate electricity [3]. In that large-scale power station (25 MW) the yield (without cogeneration) lies around the 30% mark. That option is always better than converting biomass into inferior fuel for cars which would definitely not make more efficient use of the resources.
There is still time
In short
At present bio-fuel use is still in its infancy. Worldwide a mere one percent of the fuel pool is derived from biomass. The world is already suffering the consequences of the unsustainable
cultivation of palm oil, sugar cane and maize in order to produce bio-diesel and bio-ethanol. Hundreds of millions of people barely have enough food to eat to keep them alive whilst at the same time tons of food crops are being incinerated and fermented just to keep cars on the roads. The growing of the relevant crops takes place without paying attention to the long-term consequences of such practices. More than enough thought is given to P for ‘profit’ but the other two P’s, that stand for ‘people’ and ‘planet’, have to pay for that. Irreplaceable tropical rainforests are disappearing fast, soil and water is being polluted and endangered animal species are driven from their habitats. Meanwhile the local populations are supposedly being given employment opportunities. Our Common Future is being threatened under the mask of sustainability.
Bio-fuels will probably never replace more than a portion of the diesel and petrol required. They are thus, in that respect, nothing more than transitional fuel solutions. They are, in other words, a means to the end of playing for time. It would be much better to spend the interim period conserving energy. The energy use of the transport sector can be reduced by making more use of public transport and by making fuel efficient vehicles the norm. Meanwhile research efforts have to be focused on finding more sustainable alternatives so that fossil fuels can be substituted in responsible ways. The solution does not lie in adhering rigidly to trying to use bio-fuels, but rather in investing in ‘real’ sustainable development. If we can get our cars to run on the waste that is a by-product of the sandwiches we make for ourselves, then we will be heading in the right direction.
Ruud Brand References:
[1] Biofuels Worldwide, http://www.ifp.fr/IFP/en/files/cinfo/IFP-Panorama05_07-BiocarburantVA.pdf, information retrieved on June 28th, 2007
[2] Corrections: Average Fuel Consumption in Europe Half 47% Better Than US,
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2004/11/average_fuel_co.html, information retrieved on
June 28th, 2007
[3] ECN, Energie Verslag Nederland, 1999
[4] Ethanol production from sugar cane in Brazil,
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[12] “Second-Generation” Biofuels: Heavy Focus on Biomass-to-Liquids,
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[14] Shell – Biofuels, www.shell.com/biofuels, information retrieved on June 28th, 2007 [15] Supermarkets and Service Stations Now Competing for Grain,
[16] The plot against Mexican Corn,
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