Biofuels: green gold or potential problems?

There seems to be no topic that has many different opinions in the debate about climate change as the topic of biofuels. The likelihood of them positively influencing greenhouse gas emissions is certainly huge.

But the pursuit of such new sources of fuel has raised concerns about their impact on global food supply and the environment.

When people talk about biofuels, they are understood as ethanol or biodiesel, ethanol is favored by American countries (in which Brazil and the US produce 90% of the world's ethanol); and biodiesel is favored by Europe (accounting for 89% of global biodiesel production in 2005).

Biofuels can be produced from any crop; Most ethanol in the world today is made from corn, with sugarcane being increasingly favored. Biodiesel is made primarily of vegetable oil or animal fat, and excess cooking oil from Chinese restaurants that are supplying the growing biodiesel industry in China.

A Thai worker is pouring used vegetable oil into a container before it is processed for biodiesel.

Cellulosic ethanol is also rapidly becoming the darling of the biofuels movement. And because cellulose is the most common chemical compound, it can be taken from more places and one more benefit is to move the once-considered waste materials such as corn stalks, wood chips, and grass into sources. Amazingly useful energy.

Does biofuels have carbon neutral features?

Biofuels are often considered to have carbon neutral features - that is, the amount of carbon dioxide released when burning approximately the amount of carbon dioxide they isolate when in plant form. That way, growing biofuel crops helps ease global warming, as they act as ' carbon sinks ', reducing CO2.

Concerning oil, biofuels can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than 100%. Switchgrass and other grasses have the highest level in this regard, with the ability to reduce emissions by 70 to 110% (related to petroleum fuels) compared to corn and wheat, which only reduces to a maximum of 40.

According to the Renewable Fuels Association, most existing cars can use biofuels immediately - even in small quantities. In general, when burned, it is still better for your health, reducing the amount of carbon monoxide released to more than 30%, and dust removal to 50%.

Food or fuel

Biofuels currently account for only 1% of the fuel used in global transport, but about 1% of the world delta - that is, about 12 million hectares - has been converted to produce them. But the question is whether there is enough land to produce biofuels that can replace even 50% of the old fuel we use . According to the International Applied Systems Analysis Institute, up to 300 million hectares of biofuels can be used worldwide, but even if the biofuels industry uses up to 290 million hectares, it also only meet 1/10 of the expected energy demand for 2030.

Europe has only limited land available for biofuels, and according to the Soil Association, if Europe spends 72% of its land on this, it will only meet 10% of Chau's fuel needs. Europe. However, biofuels will provide economic incentives for developing countries. The concern is whether the pursuit of economic growth through biofuel production in developing countries increases deforestation and more land conversion.

According to the World Food Program (WFP), many poor African farmers are opting to sell crops such as cassava for use as alternative energy instead of food - purely economic reasons. Some say, at least they are reducing their credibility for oil that is becoming increasingly expensive and like 25 of the 47 poorest countries in the world are importing all the oil.

Social activists warn the blooming of palm oil trees may not satisfy the thirst for both green and clean energy globally.

However, others warn of the vicious cycle created by the dangerous competition between food and fuel, this competition will lead to a lack of food, raise food prices and even make For more farmers to choose to plant fuel crops instead of food crops to meet the increasing demand (due to population growth exacerbates) and reclaim more land in the process.

A report from the Nature Conservancy and the University of Minnesota has raised serious questions about how to grow biofuels. Transforming rainforests, peatlands, steppes or grasslands to grow fuel crops will release CO2, in some cases 420 times the amount of CO2 compared to burning fuels. jelly.

And will create a ' carbon debt ' that can take up to 840 years to pay off this debt depending on what kind of land you are converting.

The worst type of land to convert is peat tropical rainforest (creating carbon debt up to 840 years) or Amazon rainforest (320 years) and with the lowest carbon debt of 17 years when converting wet forest steppes of the reserve area Cerrado in Brazil.

Bring many new problems?

The methods used to grow fuel trees continue to be considered under magnifying glass; The initial vigorous debate about this new type of energy was quickly discouraged by the realization that in pursuing climate change solutions, nothing was simple.

Some people even question the role of fertilizer in climate change, as George Monbiot recently noted in The Guardian newspaper that (based on recent statements by Nobel Laureate and Paul Crutzen), The use of fertilizers for biofuel crops will generate enough nitrogen oxides to ' wipe out all the carbon savings generated by biofuels .'

The Stockholm Environment Institute (Sweden) has warned that biofuel crops can also create an unbearable strain on water supplies. The institute believes that replacing 50% of the old fuel with biofuels to meet the demand for electricity and water will require more than 12,000 kilometers of water a year.

The International Water Management Institute warns that China and India are countries at risk of special water scarcity .

The best case can be achieved is the production of biofuels from natural grasses and timber ecological populations grown on land that is not suitable for cultivation. For example, the ARS Agricultural Research Organization recently discovered that growing natural switchgrass in pastures of Nebraska and South Dakota has produced cellulosic ethanol that produces 5.4 times more energy than all energy produces it .

Natural plants are also considered to be carbon-free because they are capable of storing excess CO ₂ in their roots and surrounding soil. But there will even be some disadvantages when using some agricultural and forestry waste products because they are not only carbon sequesters but they also provide nutrients to the soil. Removing them can lead to rapid soil erosion.