Integrated Environmental Biotechnology - Environmental Biotechnology: Theory and Application - page 246

rooted in diesel's origins might almost be described as a retrograde step in the
right direction.
The great biofuel conundrum
The global demand for energy is enormous, particularly in the industrialised
countries of the world and the production of biofuels has accordingly burgeoned
in recent years, driven by the twin pressures of environmental and economic
necessity. Ethanol production for transport tripled between 2000 and 2007, leap-
ing from 17 billion litres to more than 52 billion; biodiesel ballooned 11-fold,
to exceed 11 billion litres world-wide over the same period. Biofuels in general
accounted for 1.8% of the world transport market and global investment in their
production exceeded $4 billion (US) in 2007 (UNEP, 2009). According to the
Worldwatch Institute, world manufacture of all forms of biofuels grew by nearly
30% in 2006 alone.
There is, however, a corollary to this meteoric rise and the fundamental ques-
tion it raises is an important one. With the world's population predicted to soar
to 9.4 billion by 2050, should land be given over to fuel, or food? Biofuel crops
currently occupy 36 million hectares - around 2% - of the world's crop-land, but
for first generation biofuels to meet 10% of the global transport demand by 2030,
UN estimates suggest that perhaps as much as 500 million hectares of cropland
would be required. While this could theoretically circumvent between 0.17 and
0.76 billion tonnes of fossil CO 2 , the associated change in land use could predi-
cate an overall additional 0.75-1.83 billion tonnes of CO 2 being released (UNEP,
2009). This potential environmental own goal has not gone unnoticed, particu-
larly in terms of fertilisers (Tilman et al ., 2009), indirect emissions (Melillo et al .,
2009) and land diversion (Searchinger et al ., 2008).
On a practical level, in 2007 Grain - a charity that supports the poor farmers
of emergent nations - voiced concerns that the rush towards biofuels could have
larger social and environmental consequences than had been thought. Shortly
afterwards, the UN reported growing evidence that food prices were being driven
up in poorer nations of the world as oil-rich crops were grown for fuel, while the
Worldwatch Institute warned that current production methods could be exerting
too heavy a price on land and water resources. It is not all doom-and-gloom for
the bio-energy sector, however. Some forms of biomass derived energy, such as
SRC and waste-to-biogas, for example are outside of the 'food or fuel' discussion
ab initio , while others, such as Brazil's ethanol from the sugar cane industry are
deemed to make a positive environmental contribution (UNEP, 2009). In the
words of Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and Executive Director of
the UN Environment Programme, 'Biofuels are neither a panacea nor a pariah but
like all technologies they represent both opportunities and challenges. Therefore
a more sophisticated debate is urgently needed'.
As a final and more general environmental point on this topic, as was
mentioned earlier, the realisation has been growing that using biomass in
a balanced way, combining its undoubted value as a carbon-sink with a