The Courier

The threat of climate change associated with global warning and higher oil prices are driving forward the use of alternative fuels like biofuels which produce less carbon emissions. Biofuels can be made from maize, soya, rapeseed, sugar cane and palm, and can either be used pure if an engine is adapted, or mixed with standard diesel and petrol.

In March 2007, EU Heads of State and Government agreed that by 2020 10 per cent of all the EU’s transport fuels will be from biofuels from a sustainable source. 

A year on and a meeting of the biofuels’ industry has said that production needs to be stepped up if this target is to be met. At the 13 March congress of World Biofuels Markets, Industry representative Olivier Schaeffer and Policy Chief at the European Renewable Energy Council (EREC) said: “I believe we can hit the target of 10 per cent. And the potential is much higher than this.”

In other Brussels meeting rooms in March, enthusiasm about the future for biofuels was more diluted. Participants at a European Parliament seminar, ‘Biofuels – eco-saviours or destroyers’, raised fears that more land turned over to grow crops for biofuels will mean less land cultivated for food crops and hikes in food prices.

At the same meeting, the fact that huge tracks of forest to grow crops for biofuels will lead to a loss of biodiversity was clearly voiced. 

And Lester Brown, Director of the Washington-based Earth Policy Institute warned at the Brussels’ launch of his book Plan B 3.0 Mobilizing to Save Civilisation: “Historically the food and energy economies were separate. But with so many ethanol distilleries now being built to convert grain into fuel, the two are merging. In this new situation the world price of grain is moving towards its oil equivalent value. Suddenly the world is facing a moral and political issue that has no precedent: should we use grain to fuel cars or to feed people?”

Predicted Brown: “The risk is that rising grain prices will lead to chaos in world grain markets and to food riots in low and middle-income countries that import grain.”

Knee-jerk reaction

Claire Wenner, Head of the London-based Biofuels Renewable Energy Association said at the meeting of biofuel industrialists: “Biofuels use about one per cent of global land available for agriculture (the figure is slightly higher across Europe). For Wenner, “there is a real danger that blaming biofuels will become a knee-jerk reaction that stops us from dealing with the much larger issues of food and energy needs over the next 50 years”.

At the European Parliament conference, others called for more investment in so-called ‘second generation’ biofuels like jatropha, a woody shrub producing inedible golf ball-sized fruit with seeds containing oil that can be turned into biodiesel and – a big plus – which can be grown on waste land. 

Meanwhile countries like Sierra Leone face decisions. Interviewed by The Courier in Freetown, Agriculture Minister Dr Sam Sesay said he had received many requests from investors in palm oil, but cautioned: “Firstly we want to concentrate on satisfying domestic needs before we start to think about exports. But we don’t want palm oil to reduce other crops like rice, coffee and cocoa. We need a balance to make sure that we do not lose other important crops.”