[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
[SANET-MG] biodiesel in europe
ISIS Press Release 06/03/06
Biodiesel Boom in Europe?
A predicted boom has yet to take off in Europe as investors look abroad.
Dr. Mae-Wan Ho
A fully referenced version of this article is posted on ISIS members’
website. Details here
Overly optimistic assessment in US DOE Report
The US had plans to make biodiesel out of soybeans at least since 1998,
when a glowing assessment of its energy balance was provided in a report
sponsored by the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Energy.
It claimed that, “Biodiesel yields 3.2 units of fuel product energy for
every unit of fossil energy consumed in its life cycle” and reduces net
emissions of CO2 by 78.45 percent compared to petroleum diesel. These
estimates were overly optimistic, and out of line with other analyses
(“Biofuels for oil addicts”, this series). But this report may have had
undue influence over the subsequent development of biodiesel around the
world.
Biodiesel is Europe’s dominant renewable fuel. It is widely welcomed by
environmental groups as a renewable energy that burns more cleanly than
diesel. A comprehensive study by the US Environment Protection Agency
showed that biodiesel burns with much less hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide
and particulate matter in the exhaust, although there was an increase in
nitrogen oxides.
Global warming is accelerating and energy prices are soaring. We have to
find the right survival strategies, and we have to find them now. Time
and energy resources are both running out; squander them on the wrong
technologies and the consequences will be catastrophic, invest in the
right options and we can mitigate climate change and thrive in a post
fossil fuel world.
This report will help you make the right choices
among nuclear, biofuels, wind, solar, energy from wastes, and more…
Send it to your policy-makers to input to the global energy debate.
Sponsor this report by making a donation that will entitle you to
multiple copies at print price plus p&p. For details please e-mail:
energy@i-sis.org.uk
Europe embracing biofuels
As part of a range of measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the
EU is encouraging the use of biofuels. The current (2003) EU Biofuels
Directive requires 2 percent of the energy for transport to come from
renewable sources, including both biodiesel and bioethanol, rising to
5.75 percent by the end of 2010, and 20 percent by 2020.
Transport fuels account for around a quarter of EU’s greenhouse gas
emissions and demand for diesel and petrol is fast rising. In 2004, 270
m tonnes of fossil fuels were consumed compared with 180 m tonnes in
1985, and by 2020, fuel consumption will reach 325 m tonnes.
Tax exemptions and national targets introduced across Europe are driving
the biodiesel market. Germany has the highest consumption of biodiesel
at 1.1 m tonnes in 2004. UK’s reduction of duty on biodiesel by 20 pence
a litre in July 2002 has encouraged investment, though UK consumed only
0.3 m tonnes of biodiesel in 2004.
A new EU draft paper released 8 February 2006 outlines a series of
measures to promote biofuels in the EU and developing countries. The
current voluntary target to have biofuels make up 5.75 percent share of
transport fuels by 2010 looks likely to be missed. The EU draft paper
admitted that some aspects of biofuels are unsustainable, such as
allowing farmers to grow sugar beet for bioethanol on set-aside land, or
to convert wine into bioethanol. Set-aside land is also being used to
grow oilseed rape for biodiesel.
Europe has dominated the biodiesel industry to-date with 90 percent of
global production. The EU produced 2.4 m tonnes of biofuels in 2004,
amounting to 0.8 percent of EU petrol and diesel consumption. Bioethanol
made up 0.5 m tonnes and biodiesel 1.9 m tonnes. Rapeseed oil is the
main biodiesel feedstock, constituting just over 20 percent of EU25
total oilseed production. A special aid for energy crops was introduced
by the 2003 CAP reform that pays a premium of 45 euros per ha with a
maximum guaranteed area of 1.5 million hectares as the budgetary ceiling.
Biodiesel manufacture appears straightforward starting from oil. It is
based on a chemical process of trans-esterification in which fat or
vegetable oil is reacted with a simple alcohol such as methanol in the
presence of sodium hydroxide as catalyst. The methanol splits the fatty
acids from the oil to form methyl esters (biodiesel) and glycerine. The
glycerine is separated from the fuel and removed as a marketable
by-product (for making soap, for example), while the biodiesel is washed
with water and dried. Biodiesel can also be produced from waste cooking
oils.
Life cycle analysis ignores external costs
A study carried out in Australia showed that while biodiesel produced
from waste cooking oils reduces carbon emissions by 90 percent,
biodiesel made from rapeseed oil would save only 50 percent of carbon
dioxide emissions compared with using diesel. The UK’s biodiesel
industry group commissioned a study that found producing biodiesel from
oilseed rape “strongly energy positive”, with an output/input energy
ratio of 1.78 where straw was left in the field; where straw was burned
as fuel and oilseed rape meal used as a fertilizer, the ratio was even
better at 3.71. But these favourable estimates were arrived at by a
combination of dubious measures, such as inflating the yield of oilseed
to 4.08 t/ha when UK’s 2004 average national yield was only 2.9 t/ha,
assigning illegitimate energy credits to coproducts, leaving out
legitimate energy embodied in buildings required for processing and in
farming implements and machinery, and ignoring many external
environmental costs (“Biofuels for oil addicts”, this series).
Research conducted at the Flemish Institute for Technological Research,
sponsored by the Belgian Office for Scientific, Technical, and Cultural
Affairs and the European Commission, told a very different story, as
revealed in a paper presented at an international conference sponsored
by the US EPA in 2000. It stated: “..biodiesel fuel causes more health
and environmental problems because it created more particulate
pollution, released more pollutants that promote ozone formation,
generated more waste and caused more eutrophication.” Hence, “The
benefits biodiesel fuel offers in terms of reducing greenhouse gas
emissions do not justify its use in light of the other environmental
damage it causes…”
These conclusions created some consternation in the biodiesel community.
But as Jon Van Gerpen of Iowa State University explained, that is
because most life cycle assessments ignored external costs, on which
little has been published. He confirmed that while biodiesel reduces the
impact on the environment by 55 percent in saving fossil fuel use, and
reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent, it has greater impacts
than diesel in seven other categories of environmental impacts not
normally included in the life cycle assessment (see Box).
Biodiesel has greater environmental impacts than diesel
· Increases inorganic raw materials, the mineral feedstock for making
fertilisers, by 100 percent
· Increases non-radioactive wastes, primarily gypsum, a by-product of
phosphate fertilizer, by 98 percent
· Inreases radioactive wastes due to electricity supplied by nuclear
power plants by 90 percent
· Increases eutrophication from fertiliser run-offs by 75 percent
· Increases photochemical oxidants due to volatile organic compounds
released during the production of biodiesel, especially hexane in
solvent-based oil extraction, by nearly 70 percent
· Increases water use (in the esterification process for creating
biodiesel) by 30 percent
· Increases acidication from nitrogen and sulphur oxides and ammonia
released during the growth of rapeseed crop, also from nitrogen oxides
emissions from burning biodisel, by 15 percent.
While not contesting the scientific validity of the analysis provided in
the report for biodiesel production from oilseed rape in Belgium, van
Gerpen concluded it could not be extrapolated to biodiesel production
from soybean in the US, where, he claimed, those environmental impacts
would be minimal, though others would disagree with him.
Rapeseed is indeed a relatively expensive crop to grow, requiring
frequent rotation and extensive use of expensive fossil-fuel
fertilisers, with major environmental concerns. It is estimated that the
cost of producing biodiesel is twice that of conventional diesel. And
just to meet the 5.75 percent target, more than 9 percent of the EU’s
agricultural area will be needed.
Outsourcing biodiesel
The cost of biodiesel is reduced substantially if energy crops were
produced overseas. The UK-based company D1 Oils is developing huge
plantations of jatropha trees (Jatropha Curcas), a non-edible oil crop,
all over the third world (“The new biofuel republics”, this series). But
this approach will do nothing to improve energy supply security for Europe.
Not only that, it would wreak havoc on food production in third world
countries, already reeling from the globalised food trade.
British Petroleum has announced it will fund a $9.4 m project by The
Energy and Resources Institute in Andhra Pradesh to produce biodiesel
from jatropha. The project, expected to take 10 years, would involve
cultivating jatropha on about 8 000 ha currently designated as
“wasteland”, and install all the equipment necessary for crushing the
seed, extracting oil and processing to produce 9 million litres of
biodiesel per annum.
Part of the project will include a full environmental and social impact
assessment of elements of the supply chain and life cycle analysis of
greenhouse gas emissions.
“Because jatropha is drought resistant and can grow on marginal land, it
offers the possibility of an economically, socially and environmentally
sustainable contribution to energy security challenges in India,” said
Phil New, senior vice president of BP’s fuels management group.
“Recent developments have made green fuels economically attractive in
view of the resource potential of this option and the environmental
benefits associated with it, along with employment generation and
empowerment of the rural population,” TERI Director General, Dr RK
Pachauri, said.
The big question is what constitutes “marginal” and “wasteland”, and who
really benefits from the biodiesel produced, let alone the environmental
costs that have not been factored in (“The new biofuels republics”, this
series).
********************************************************
To unsubscribe from SANET-MG:
1- Visit http://lists.sare.org/archives/sanet-mg.html to unsubscribe or;
2- Send a message to <listserv@sare.org> from the address subscribed to the list. Type "unsubscribe sanet-mg" in the body of the message.
Visit the SANET-MG archives at: http://lists.sare.org/archives/sanet-mg.html.
Questions? Visit http://www.sare.org/about/sanetFAQ.htm.
For more information on grants and other resources available through the SARE program, please visit http://www.sare.org.