Is this the end of the road for first gen biofuels?
An official government report is set to conclude that booming demand for biofuels has had a “significant” impact on global food supplies, forcing ministers into a major rethink of controversial biofuel targets.
According to reports in today’s Guardian newspaper, The Gallagher Review will warn that while some biofuels can have environmental benefits, there is need for wider research into the indirect effects of demand for energy crops on deforestation and food prices.
The Review, which was commissioned by the Department for Transport and chaired by the head of the Renewable Fuel Agency Professor Ed Gallagher, will also call for a clear distinction to be made between “first generation” biofuels derived from food crops such as corn, palm oil and soya, and “second generation” biofuels made from waste organic matter and non-food plants such as algae and jatropha which would theoretically be grown without eating into land used for food production. Read more
Source: Business Green
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It must be remembered that the objections have never been about the actual concept of using biofuels, but more the source of the material. For example, the ideal sources of biofuels would be “biomass wastes” such as the by-products of crop, livestock, forestry, municipal and related industrial production systems. However, that mainly from the perspective of sustainable solutions waste management and creating value from by-products; this is highly unlikely to be an adequate source of biomaterials demand in the case of widespread adoption of biomass energy and biofuels.
The whole idea of using food crops could be described (at the very least) as highly myopic – the issues of food competition, biodiversity and other “opportunity costs” associated with the use have been described in detail elsewhere. The talk of “second generation” biofuels from algae and other sources has been around for a while, but little tangible information has been forthcoming in relation to how close the research into those sources, is to becoming a practical (and economically feasible) reality…
Karl Ramjohn
23 Jun 08 at 7:25 am