Food versus fuel - new report paints grim outlook
First it was environmentalist critic George Monbiot who brought the old debate about food versus fuel back into the spotlight. His short article, "Feeding Cars, Not People", written for the Guardian, was of a programmatic, critical nature and opened many people's eyes. To their frustration, biofuels advocates responded [*.pfd] in detail and accused Monbiot of a lack of scientific rigor, and of playing on emotions instead of on facts.
We at the BioPact did our bit, pointing out that people like Monbiot act as important counterpoints to the over-enthusiasmic green energy advocates, but that we are not served by rhetoric. We acknowledge the environmental, social and (geo)political problems associated with mass production of green energy, but we take a scientific look at the global potential, and we see room for expansion. Most importantly, and contrary to Monbiot, we think the production of bioenergy by farmers in the developing world offers them a once-in-an-era chance of lifting themselves out of poverty.
Today, Toronto-based Sprott Asset Management produced a bleak study [*.pdf], adding...oil to the fire. It says global warming is occurring faster than expected and rising demand for so-called green fuel will cut into food supplies. The investment firm also predicts increased regulation and ballooning deficits as governments try to cope with more frequent climate-related disasters while building new infrastructure to reduce carbon emissions. Hyperinflation is seen as a plausible result.
Clearly, we consider this to be another boost to the rationale for a BioPact with the poor South. And we keep repeating it: invest in energy farming in sub-Saharan Africa, where land is plenty, people need jobs, and bioenergy farming allows them to produce for a world market, increasing their incomes, lifting them out of poverty, and increasing food security. We agree with the new study: the status-quo, where wealthy Northern nations produce green energy, will result in pressures on food production. This is exactly why we strive towards broadening the picture and involving the developing world into a global energy exchange relationship.
We are not going to repeat our own points of view on the food-versus-fuel debate. Instead we wish to refer the reader to our previous discussions about the topic here, here and here.
Let's give the word back to Sprott Asset Management, because we need as many perspectives as we can get:
“Governments, business and the general public are just now waking up to the seriousness of global warming as we witness its consequences unfolding around the planet,” CEO Eric Sprott and market strategist Kevin Bambrough wrote in the report.
The authors of the study are also predicting a huge expansion of nuclear energy, saying it is the cheapest non-carbon energy source that can be developed on the scale needed to meet growing fuel demands.
Most environmentalist continue to adamantly oppose nuclear power, but Bambrough said the technology is being improved, and none of the alternatives can supply energy on the scale needed.
The study raises major concerns about the current rush to biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel. Biofuels are expected to figure prominently in Ottawa's new “made-in-Canada” clean air plan, due this fall.
“As oil prices surge the incentive to produce energy from vegetable oils heightens,” the authors predict.
“This in turn is likely to result in the increased cultivation of plants like palm and soybeans, used to make biofuels.
“When we take into consideration the potential shortages of food crops that may result from an abrupt climate change, it is likely that governments will soon be facing a choice between feeding people and feeding SUVs.”
The latest research shows biofuels require more energy to produce than they release when used, says the study. Corn, for example, requires 29 per cent more energy than the fuel produced.
Expansion of the biofuels industry is a major cause of rainforest destruction in Brazil and Southeast Asia, the report adds.
Carbon sequestration and coal gasification get high marks as potential technologies to slow the buildup of carbon in the atmosphere.
Uranimum mining is one of the big investment opportunities in a generally bearish picture, Bambrough said in an interview.
Source for the interview: Globe and Mail.
Article continues
We at the BioPact did our bit, pointing out that people like Monbiot act as important counterpoints to the over-enthusiasmic green energy advocates, but that we are not served by rhetoric. We acknowledge the environmental, social and (geo)political problems associated with mass production of green energy, but we take a scientific look at the global potential, and we see room for expansion. Most importantly, and contrary to Monbiot, we think the production of bioenergy by farmers in the developing world offers them a once-in-an-era chance of lifting themselves out of poverty.
Today, Toronto-based Sprott Asset Management produced a bleak study [*.pdf], adding...oil to the fire. It says global warming is occurring faster than expected and rising demand for so-called green fuel will cut into food supplies. The investment firm also predicts increased regulation and ballooning deficits as governments try to cope with more frequent climate-related disasters while building new infrastructure to reduce carbon emissions. Hyperinflation is seen as a plausible result.
Clearly, we consider this to be another boost to the rationale for a BioPact with the poor South. And we keep repeating it: invest in energy farming in sub-Saharan Africa, where land is plenty, people need jobs, and bioenergy farming allows them to produce for a world market, increasing their incomes, lifting them out of poverty, and increasing food security. We agree with the new study: the status-quo, where wealthy Northern nations produce green energy, will result in pressures on food production. This is exactly why we strive towards broadening the picture and involving the developing world into a global energy exchange relationship.
We are not going to repeat our own points of view on the food-versus-fuel debate. Instead we wish to refer the reader to our previous discussions about the topic here, here and here.
Let's give the word back to Sprott Asset Management, because we need as many perspectives as we can get:
“Governments, business and the general public are just now waking up to the seriousness of global warming as we witness its consequences unfolding around the planet,” CEO Eric Sprott and market strategist Kevin Bambrough wrote in the report.
The authors of the study are also predicting a huge expansion of nuclear energy, saying it is the cheapest non-carbon energy source that can be developed on the scale needed to meet growing fuel demands.
Most environmentalist continue to adamantly oppose nuclear power, but Bambrough said the technology is being improved, and none of the alternatives can supply energy on the scale needed.
The study raises major concerns about the current rush to biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel. Biofuels are expected to figure prominently in Ottawa's new “made-in-Canada” clean air plan, due this fall.
“As oil prices surge the incentive to produce energy from vegetable oils heightens,” the authors predict.
“This in turn is likely to result in the increased cultivation of plants like palm and soybeans, used to make biofuels.
“When we take into consideration the potential shortages of food crops that may result from an abrupt climate change, it is likely that governments will soon be facing a choice between feeding people and feeding SUVs.”
The latest research shows biofuels require more energy to produce than they release when used, says the study. Corn, for example, requires 29 per cent more energy than the fuel produced.
Expansion of the biofuels industry is a major cause of rainforest destruction in Brazil and Southeast Asia, the report adds.
Carbon sequestration and coal gasification get high marks as potential technologies to slow the buildup of carbon in the atmosphere.
Uranimum mining is one of the big investment opportunities in a generally bearish picture, Bambrough said in an interview.
Source for the interview: Globe and Mail.
Article continues
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Vietnam firm ships bagasse for bioenergy to Japan
This news snippet from ThanNien News is rather interesting: a Ho Chi Minh City-based company shipped 100 tons of bagasse to Japan this week under a deal it signed recently.
It collected the bagasse from city sugar mills and processed it for export, a company representative said, adding the material was for use on Japanese farms to warm cattle via a bioenergy system, and to produce organic fertilizer from the residue. The company has exported over 400 tons to that country this year.
Bagasse is the sugarcane fiber remaining after the juice is extracted. Vietnamese mills produce 15 million tons of sugar a year and 5 million tons of bagasse.
So why is this interesting? Well it shows that biomass feedstocks can be shipped thousands of miles, in bulk, and still make commercial sense. The IEA Bioenergy Task 40, which studies biomass trade and supply chains, confirms this. Earlier we reported about a Dutch firm, Essent Energy, that imports agro-residues (palm kernels) all the way from Malaysia to be used in its biomass co-firing power plant, while similarly, a large biomass power station in Belgium imports wood residues from all over the world, from Uruguay, Canada and Central-Africa.
Since the tropical world produces vast amounts of under- or non-used biomass waste-streams each year (coconut shells, wood chips, cacao hulls, palm kernels, coffee hulls, palm fibre, peanut shells, etc...), the co-firing and biomass power plants in the developed world might want to import these, which will bring additional income to the farmers from the South.
This is what we at the BioPact are promoting.
[entry ends here]
Article continues
posted by Biopact team at 4:00 PM 0 comments links to this post