Scientists Take a Second Look at Biofuels: Dutch efforts verge on nightmare

Scientists Take aSecond Look at Biofuels: Dutch efforts verge on nightmare

31 January 2007

Southeast Asia — Just a few years ago, politicians and green groups in theNetherlands were thrilled by the country’s early and rapid adoption of “sustainableenergy,” achieved in part by coaxing electricity plants to use some biofuel in particular, palm oil from Southeast Asia.

Spurred by government subsidies, energy companies became so enthusiastic thatthey designed generators that ran exclusively on the oil, which in theory wouldbe cleaner than fossil fuels like coal because it is derived from plants.

But last year, when scientists studied practices at palm plantations inIndonesia and Malaysia, this green fairy tale began to look more like anenvironmental nightmare. Rising demand for palm oil in Europe brought about therazing of huge tracts of Southeast Asian rain forest and the overuse of
chemical fertilizer there. Worse still, space for the expanding palm plantationswas often created by draining and burning peat land, which sent huge amount ofcarbon emissions into the atmosphere.

Factoring in these emissions, Indonesia had quickly become the world’sthird-leading producer of greenhouse gases that scientists believe areresponsible for global warming, ranked after the United States and China,concluded a study released in December by researchers from Wetlands
International and Delft Hydraulics, both in the Netherlands. “It wasshocking and totally smashed all the good reasons we initially went into palmoil,” said Alex Kaat, a spokesman for Wetlands, a conservation group.Biofuels, long a cornerstone of the quest for greener energy, may sometimes
produce more harmful emissions than the fossil fuels they replace, scientificstudies are finding.

As a result, politicians in many countries are rethinking the billions ofdollars in subsidies that have indiscriminately supported the spread of all ofthese supposedly “eco-friendly” fuels, for use in power vehicles andfactories. The 2003 European Union Biofuels Directive, which demands that allmember states aim to have 5.75 percent of transportation fueled by biofuel in2010, is now under review.

“If you make biofuels properly, you will reduce greenhouse emissions,”said Peder Jensen, of the European Environment Agency in Copenhagen. “Butthat depends very much on the types of plants and how they’re grown andprocessed. You can end up with a 90 percent reduction compared to fossil
fuels or a 20 percent increase.”

“Its important to take a life cycle view,” he said, and not to”just see what the effects are here in Europe.”

In the Netherlands, the data from Indonesia has provoked soul searching, andprompted the government to suspend palm oil subsidies. A country that was aleader in green energy in Europe has now become a leader in the effort todistinguish which biofuels are truly environmentally sound. The
government, environmental groups and some of the “green energy”companies in the Netherlands are trying to develop programs to trace the originof imported palm oil, to certify what is produced in an eco-friendly manner.

Krista van Velzen, a member of Parliament, said the Netherlands should paycompensation to Indonesia for the damage palm oil has caused. “We can’tonly think, ‘Does it pollute the Netherlands?'”

Biofuels are heavily subsidized throughout the developed world, including theEuropean Union and the United States, and enjoy tax breaks that are givenbecause they more expensive to produce than conventional fuel.

In the United States and Brazil most biofuel is ethanol, derived from corn andused to power vehicles. In Europe it is mostly local rapeseed and sunflower oil,used to make diesel fuel. But as many European countries push for more greenenergy, they are increasingly importing plant oils from
the tropics, since there is simply not enough biomass at home.

On the surface, the environmental equation that supports biofuels is simple:Since they are derived from plants, biofuels absorb carbon while they are grownand release it when they are burned. In theory that neutralizes their emissions.

But the industry was promoted long before there was adequate research, saidReanne Creyghton, who runs Friends of the Earth’s anti-palm oil campaign in theNetherlands. “Palm oil was advertised as green energy, but there was noresearch about whether it was really sustainable.”

Biofuelswatch, an environmental group in Britain, now say that “biofuelsshould not automatically be classed as ‘renewable energy.'” It supports amoratorium on subsidies until more research is done to define which biofuels aretruly good for the planet. Beyond that, the group suggests that all emissionsrising from the production of a biofuel be counted as emissions in the countrywhere the fuel is actually used, providing a clearer accounting of environmentalcosts. The demand for palm oil in Europe has skyrocketed in the past twodecades, first for use in food and cosmetics, and more recently for biofuels.This versatile and low-cost oil is used in about 10 percent of supermarketproducts, from chocolate to toothpaste, accounting for 21 percent of the globalmarket for edible oils.

Palm oil produces the most energy of all vegetable oils per liter when burned.In much of Europe it is used as a substitute for diesel oil, though in theNetherlands, with little sun for solar power and little wind for turbines, thegovernment has encouraged its use for electricity.

Supported by hundreds of millions of euros in national subsidies, theNetherlands rapidly became the leading importer of palm oil in Europe, taking in1.5 million tons last year, a figure that has been nearly
doubling annually. The Dutch green energy giant Essent alone bought 200,000 tons,before it agreed to suspend new purchases until a better system for certifyingsustainably grown palm oil could be developed. The company now has replaced thepalm oil it used with conventional sources of energy and local biofuels.

But already the buoyant demand has created damage far away. “When youdrastically increase the demand for agricultural products, that puts newpressure on the land and can have unintended consequences and hidden costs,”Jensen, of the European Environment Agency, said.

Friends of the Earth estimates that 87 percent of the deforestation in Malaysiafrom 1985 to 2000 was caused by new palm oil plantations. In Indonesia, theamount of land devoted to palm oil has increased 118 percent in the past eightyears.

Oil needed by poor people for food was becoming too expensive for them. “Wehave a problem satisfying the Netherlands’ energy needs with someone else’s foodresources,” said Creyghton of Friends of the Earth.

Such concerns were causing intense misgivings about palm oil already when, inDecember, scientists from Wetlands International released their bombshellcalculation about the global emissions that palm farming on peat land caused.

Peat is an organic sponge that stores huge amounts of carbon, thereby helping tobalance global emissions. Peat land is 90 percent water. But when it is drained,those stored gases are released into the atmosphere. To makes matters worse,once dried, peat land is often burned to clear ground
for plantations. In recent years Indonesia has been plagued by pollutingwildfires so intense that they send thick clouds of smoke over much of Asia.

The Dutch study estimated that the draining of peat land in Indonesia releases600 million tons of carbon into the atmosphere a year and that fires contributedan additional 1,400 million tons annually. The total, 2000 million tons, isequivalent to 8 percent of all global emissions caused annually by burningfossil fuels, the researchers said.

“These emissions generated by peat drainage in Indonesia were not countedbefore,” Kaat, of Wetlands International, said. “It was a totallyignored problem.” For the moment Wetlands is backing the certificationsystem for palm oil imports, to make sure it is grown and processed in asustainable
manner.

But some environmental groups are convinced that palm oil cannot be producedsustainably at reasonable prices. Part of the reason palm oil is now relativelyinexpensive is because of poor environmental practices and labor abuses, theysay. Still, some Dutch companies like Biox, a young
company fully devoted to producing energy from palm oil, are confident therewill be a solution and are banking on this biofuel.

Biox has applied to build three palm oil power plants in the Netherlands; thefirst one gained approval just last week. It is currently auditing itsplantations and refineries in Indonesia for sustainability.

“Yes, there have been bad examples in the palm oil industry,” saidArjen Brinkman, a company official. “But it is now clear that to serveEurope’s markets for biofuel and bioenergy, you will have to prove that youproduce it sustainably that you are producing less, not more CO2.”

24. November 2017/by GFMCadmin