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Science Forum Index » Agriculture - Poultry Forum » Biofuel: the burning question
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 Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 12:39 am |
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Independent.co.uk
Biofuel: the burning question
The production of biofuel is devastating huge swathes of the world's
environment. So why on earth is the Government forcing us to use more
of it?
By Cahal Milmo
Tuesday, 15 April 2008
From today, all petrol and diesel sold on forecourts must contain at
least 2.5 per cent biofuel. The Government insists its flagship
environmental policy will make Britain's 33 million vehicles greener.
But a formidable coalition of campaigners is warning that, far from
helping to reverse climate change, the UK's biofuel revolution will
speed up global warming and the loss of vital habitat worldwide.
Amid growing evidence that massive investment in biofuels by developed
countries is helping to cause a food crisis for the world's poor, the
ecological cost of the push to produce billions of litres of petrol
and diesel from plant sources will be highlighted today with protests
across the country and growing political pressure to impose guarantees
that the new technology reduces carbon emissions.
On the day when the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO) comes
into force, requiring oil companies to ensure all petrol and diesel
they sell in the UK contains a minimum level of biofuel, campaigners
condemned as "disastrous" the absence of any standards requiring
producers to prove their biofuel is not the product of highly damaging
agricultural practices responsible for destroying rainforests,
peatlands and wildlife-rich savannahs or grasslands from Indonesia to
sub-Saharan Africa to Europe.
A study by the RSPB published today criticises the introduction of the
RTFO as "over-hasty" and "utter folly". The conservation body said
there is already widespread evidence that biofuel production is
destroying vast areas of unspoilt habitat and has made at least one
species extinct.
Demonstrators will gather outside Downing Street and other locations
including Aberdeen, Bristol, Manchester and Norwich to protest at the
"perverse obstinacy" of the Government in going ahead with the RTFO
and will call for its abandonment until the impact of biofuel
production can be properly assessed.
Graham Wynne, chief executive of the RSPB, said: "The volume of
biofuel that can be genuinely described as sustainable is at present
very small indeed and is nowhere near enough to warrant the 2.5 per
cent obligation. The impacts of biofuel production on forests and
wetlands are already being seen worldwide. It is a tragedy that
customers' money is going to be spent on driving this destruction."
The World Bank and the UN have, in recent days, expressed concern
about the impact of biofuels on world food prices, sparking riots from
Haiti to the Philippines. Gordon Brown, who has put the issue on the
agenda at the forthcoming G8 summit, has also voiced concerns at EU
level about deforestation and loss of habitats caused by biofuel
production. And Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, raised the issue at
the weekend's G7 meeting in Washington.
But ministers insisted that the RTFO, which will require Britain to
produce or import up to 2.5 billion litres of biofuel each year, puts
the UK at the forefront of efforts to make the industry sustainable by
demanding that suppliers provide reports on where their green petrol
and diesel comes from as well as the expected carbon savings.
The Department for Transport estimates 2.5 million tonnes of carbon
dioxide will be saved by 2010. The proportion of biofuel will rise to
5 per cent by 2010 in the UK and there is a proposed EU-wide target of
10 per cent by 2020.
Jim Fitzpatrick, the Transport minister, said: "Making it easier for
motorists to use greener fuel is an important step towards reducing
carbon emissions from transport. It should help save millions of
tonnes of carbon dioxide in the coming years."
For motorists, there will be no discernible difference at the petrol
pump. Bio-diesel, largely sourced from processed palm oil, soya beans
and rape seed, and bio-ethanol for petrol, produced from cereals and
sugars, are simply mixed with fossil fuels.
But environmentalists insist the projected carbon dioxide savings are
based on a false premise because the clearance of huge areas of
Indonesian rainforest and peatland or South American savannahs, the
use of fertiliser to grow crops, conversion into biofuel and
transportation to petrol stations mean emissions caused by the
manufacturing of the fuels can vastly outweigh any CO2 saved once put
in a car's tank.
Researchers at the University of Minnesota published a study in
February this year which found that growing biofuel crops on converted
rainforests, grasslands or peat bogs created up to 420 times more CO2
than it saved.
Campaigners have pointed to palm oil, one of the key biofuel crops, as
a particular menace because many plantations across south-east Asia
are based on reclaimed forest and peatland, creating carbon emissions
that can never be reclaimed by biofuel production. In South America,
the Alagoas curassow, a large bird once found in north-eastern Brazil,
has become extinct because sugar cane production wiped out its
habitat.
The RSPB study, entitled A Cool Approach to Biofuels, points out that
legally enforceable standards designed to eliminate such crops from
the RTFO will not be imposed until 2011, leaving a three-year gap for
non-sustainable biofuel to flood into Britain.
Mr Wynne said: "Proof that biofuels were truly green should have been
in place long before the RTFO came into force. The method of
production of some biofuel will cause habitat loss, displace food
production and emit more greenhouse gases than are being saved."
Campaigners are calling for a legally binding target to ensure all
biofuels save at least 60 per cent more carbon than they produce.
In the meantime, they point to a loophole in the RTFO which means that
suppliers can answer "don't know" to a question about the previous use
of the land that produced the biofuel.
Tesco, which has claimed all its biodiesel comes from rapeseed and
soya, was forced to admit palm oil can make up a significant part of
its product after a sample analysed was found to contain 30 per cent
palm oil.
Norman Baker, the Liberal Democrat transport spokesman, said: "Thanks
to flaws in the Government's system, companies selling these fuels
will even be allowed to get away with saying that they don't know
whether they've been sourced sustainably or not. This makes a mockery
of the entire idea of sustainability standards."
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