Carbusters #27
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Fueling the Future, or Feeding our Obsession

by Henry Studer

In recent months, the car industry has been canonising itself by pointing out its efforts for alternative fuels, energy efficiency and every little gadget that will help reduce some of the pollution which cars themselves have been causing over the past century. Also, the European Union has declared that it wants biofuels that come from renewable resources to make up almost 6% of total fuel for transport.
    By the end of 2007, writes Reuters, the EU will be producing six million tonnes of biofuel, up 50% from current levels. In 2005, the US Department of Energy produced 3.4 billion gallons of ethanol, accounting for 14% of all corn produced in the US. However, this represents less than 1% of total vehicle use.
    After opening the auto show in Geneva, the Swiss minister of transport cold-shouldered the hot sport cars and powerful off-roaders to inform himself at the booth of the new ethanol-driven automobile. The conclusion of the news magazine Facts, and many others, is overly hasty: "There are no reasons left to demonise the automobile."
    On the one hand, the Traffic Club of Switzerland (VCS) quotes an analysis from the Ministry of Environment (BUWAL) from 1998, illustrating that, considering all life cycle processes, biodiesel and ethanol are worse than their fossil substitutes. This judgement depends on the weighting of the relevant criteria like energy balance, CO2 savings, agricultural impacts and emissions such as NOx.
    David Pimentel's studies also suggest that more fossil fuel energy is needed to produce ethanol than is contained in the ethanol. Further, he says that in comparison with fossil fuels, "plants and trees do not collect enough solar energy to supply humans with their needs."
    Now energy is literally harvested on fields, which is a renewable process if fossil fuel inputs are eliminated. Farmers are starting to see a new potential for their fallow land. The German Association for Plant Oils calculates that "only" 3.6 million km2 of oil palm would be required to substitute for today's global crude oil demand. This would be 12% of Africa or 2.6% of the earth's land surface. But according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, there were only about 14 million km2 available for agricultural purposes in 2005.
    Diverting 25% of this land from food to energy production wouldn't really help improve food security in developing countries. Furthermore, oil palm plantations often displace rainforests, as do soybeans, another valuable source of plant oil. And the yield of most oil crops is around 1,500 litres/hectare, requiring six times more area for the same oil output than requiring for growing oil palm (10,000 litres/hectare). In fact already 10% of Germany's arable land is devoted to energy crops - mainly rapeseed - but this provides only 1.6% of the fuel consumed in the country.
    Although plant oil fuels are suitable for the quiet conscience of a small group of ecologically sensitised drivers and are not a solution for mankind's tremendous addiction to mobility and energy, there are potential biofuels out there that suggest a viable alternative, at least on a small scale. The Indian government believes it can produce about 20 million tonnes of biodiesel on 150,000 km2 of waste land, thereby reducing erosion, providing rural employment and reducing India's trade deficit caused by its energy imports. The plan is to grow jatropha, a frugal scrub bearing inedible nuts with a high oil content, which could even shade an intermediate food crop on the newly developed farm land.
    However, even this impressive potential will not be able to meet the rising diesel demand, and it would probably be better used to supply power for remote villages or running the diesel trains of Indian Railways, which is already involved in jatropha cultivation, as are local and international companies.
    Regarding synthetic biomass fuels, laborious efforts at processing fuels in order to drive cars only makes sense after substituting fossil fuels at power plants, which can easily run on unprocessed biomass such as wood. Despite the trend-setting attempts for biogas fuel stations in Switzerland, gas-driven cars mainly have to depend on non-renewable sources.
    Finally, the possibility exists that the technical challenges facing hydrogen fuel cell production might be solved. Yet hydrogen is only a form of energy storage, and its proponents will have a rude awakening when the time comes to look for a clean and affordable energy source for hydrogen generation.
    All of this and more will become clearer in the next few pages. Take a breath of (fresh) air, and get ready to run through the biofuel meadow.

Henry Studer is an industrial engineer, based in Switzerland, who works with renewable resources. Steven Logan contributed to this article.

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