“Political leaders seem intent on suppressing and ignoring the strong evidence that biofuels are a major factor in recent food price rises,” said Robert Bailey, policy adviser at Oxfam. “It is imperative that we have the full picture. While politicians concentrate on keeping industry lobbies happy, people in poor countries cannot afford enough to eat.”

Rising food prices have pushed 100m people worldwide below the poverty line, estimates the World Bank, and have sparked riots from Bangladesh to Egypt. Government ministers here have described higher food and fuel prices as “the first real economic crisis of globalisation”.

The report “would put the World Bank in a political hot-spot with the White House.” The US government claims that biofuels only contribute to about 3% in increased food prices. Senior development sources have said that the report “has not been published to avoid embarrassing President George Bush.”

But it’s not just USA who should feel embarrassed by the findings in the report. The European Union is also a big player in the biofuel world.

Recently the European Environment Agency’s (EEA) Scientific Committee called for the suspension of EU’s target to increase the share of biofuels used in transportation to 10% by 2020. The committee has called for a new, “comprehensive scientific study on the environmental risks and benefits of biofuels” before any targets should be set.

And it wasn’t long ago Jean Ziegler, UN’s special rapporteur on the right to food, called for the suspension of biofuels production saying biofuels are a “crime against humanity.” And before that, Finance Indian Finance Minister P. Chidambaram said that “it is “outrageous” that developed countries are turning food crops into biofuels while billions of people in the developing countries are living on the edge and trying to cope with escalating food prices”.

And even more pressure is expected to come from the British governments own report on the impact of biofuels, the Gallagher Report.

“The Guardian has previously reported that the British study will state that plant fuels have played a “significant” part in pushing up food prices to record levels. Although it was expected last week, the report has still not been released.”

Have our car-fetish really taken us this far? Do we actually approve and like the idea to transform food into fuel to keep our gas-guzzling cars running, no matter what the costs are?

If you didn’t think Brita’s plastic water bottle advertising campaign was disgusting this one surely is. The Swedish company Flygbussarna (shortly translated to The Flight Busses) wants to get the word out about their recent environmental efforts.

According to the company every third buss that goes to Arlanda (the largest airport in Sweden) is running on Rapeseed Methyl Ester (RME), which is a form of biodiesel. The biodiesel fuel is supposedly coming from fields near the airport.

Flygbussarna is planning that in a three years period become 100% free from fossil fuels by using biodiesels to power their busses to and from the airports.

Their advertising campaign regarding this is disgusting on so many levels. I personally think it is inappropriate to mix and confuse fuel and food in this way.

The images really speak for themselves.

Jean Ziegler, UN’s special rapporteur on the right to food, yesterday called for the suspension of biofuels production saying biofuels are a “crime against humanity.”

“Biofuels, with today’s current production methods, are a crime against a great part of humanity. They’re an intolerable crime, and I requested the United Nations General Assembly in New York in my last report to the Human Rights Council that a moratorium be imposed as a five-year ban against this transformation.”

The comment was made during an emergency summit in Switzerland where the UN discusses ways to tackle the global food crisis.

Ziegler said later in an interview with Al Jazeera that “burning food today so as to serve the mobility of the rich countries is a crime against humanity”.

According to Jean Ziegler biofuels is a major cause for the food crisis that has thrown millions into poverty. And he is not alone in arguing this.

The European Environment Agency’s (EEA) Scientific Committee recently called for the suspension of EU’s target to increase the share of biofuels used in transport to 10% by 2020. The committee wants a new and “comprehensive scientific study on the environmental risks and benefits of biofuels” before any targets should be set.

PetroSun launched the world’s first commercial algae-to-biofuel facility in Rio Hondo (Texas, USA) earlier this month.

The facility consists of up to 1100 acres (445,15 hectares) of saltwater ponds were the company will be growing the algae. 20 of those acres will be used to produce biofuels from algae. Another 20 acres will be used to produce an experimental jet fuel.

The whole facility is expected to produce around 4.4 million gallons of algal oil and around 110 million pounds of biomass per year.

Gordon LeBlanc, Jr., CEO of PetroSun said that their “business model has been focused on proving the commercial feasibility of the firms’ algae-to-biofuels technology during the past eighteen months.”

He continued by saying:

“Whether we have arrived at this point in time by a superior technological approach, sheer luck or a redneck can-do attitude, the fact remains that microalgae can outperform the current feedstocks utilized for conversion to biodiesel and ethanol, yet do not impact the consumable food markets or fresh water resources.”

According to PetroSun they are planning on starting algae farms and algal oil extraction plants in other US states during 2008. They also have plans to expand their business to Mexico, Brazil and Australia.

The above image shows the algae-to-biofuels facility in Texas. Image credit: Google Maps.

The committees concerns are summarised below:

Biofuel production based on first generation technologies does not optimally use biomass resources with regard to fossil energy saving and to greenhouse gas reduction. Technologies for direct heat and electricity generation should be preferred because they are more economically competitive and more environmentally effective than biofuel production for vehicles.

Biomass utilisation implies combustion of very valuable and finite resources from our living environment. These resources ought to be preserved wherever possible. Therefore biomass utilisation must necessarily go hand in hand with energy efficiency improvements. This is not yet the case for the majority of applications in the automotive and residential sectors.

The EEA has estimated the amount of available arable land for bioenergy production without harming the environment in the EU (EEA Report No 7/2006). In the view of the EEA Scientific Committee the land required to meet the 10 % target exceeds this available land area even if a considerable contribution of second generation fuels is assumed. The consequences of the intensification of biofuel production are thus increasing pressures on soil, water and biodiversity.

The 10 % target will require large amounts of additional imports of biofuels. The accelerated destruction of rain forests due to increasing biofuel production can already be witnessed in some developing countries. Sustainable production outside Europe is difficult to achieve and to monitor.

The overambitious 10 % biofuel target is an experiment, whose unintended effects are difficult to predict and difficult to control. Therefore the Scientific Committee recommends suspending the 10 % goal; carrying out a new, comprehensive scientific study on the environmental risks and benefits of biofuels; and setting a new and more moderate long-term target, if sustainability cannot be guaranteed.

The European Environment Agency’s Scientific Committee consists of 20 independent scientists from 15 different EEA member countries. The committee helps the EEA Management Board and the Executive Director by “providing scientific advice and delivering professional opinions on any scientific matter” that the EEA might undertake.

The EEA is located in Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark. EEA currently consists of 27 EU member states, 3 European Economic Area members (Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein), Switzerland and Turkey.

According to the 2007 IPCC Fourth Assessment Report Synthesis Report, unaddressed CO2 pollution and global warming will have a devastating effect on global malnutrition and poverty (see: http://www.ipcc.ch and see http://green-blog.org). According the Professor David Pimentel (2004) of Cornell University, New York, global malnutrition and poverty will be an “unimaginable” problem by 2054 (see: http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Feb04/AAAS.pimentel.hrs.html ), already pollution of the soil, water and air kills about 40% of the world’s population and 57% of the world’s population of 6.5 billion is already malnourished (see: http://news.cornell.edu/…/moreDiseases.sl.html).

Already 16 million people due avoidably each year (9.6 million being under-5 year old infants) from deprivation and deprivation-exacerbated disease on a Spaceship Earth dominated by a profligate and unresponsive First World (see “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950“, G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007) – and this is increasingly being impacted by climate change through mega-delta inundation by storm surges, drought and increased temperature.

The worst offenders are the US, Canada and Australia as can be seen from this comparison of “annual per capita fossil fuel-derived carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution” (2004 data from the US Energy Information Administration) in tonnes CO2/person which is 19.2 (for Australia; 40 if you include Australia’s coal exports), 19.7 (the US), 18.4 (Canada), 9.9 (Japan), 4.2 (the World), 3.6 (China), 1.0 ( India) and 0.25 (for Bangladesh) (see “Climate Emergency, Sustainability Emergency“).

According to Sir Nicholas Stern as quoted by the Guardian (2007): “[annual average CO2] emissions a head are more than 20 tonnes each year, with European citizens producing 10-15 tonnes each. In China it is about five tonnes, in India about one, and in Africa less than one tonne each” (see: http://guardian.co.uk/…/climatechange.carbonemissions).

However the problems of Third World countries are now being impacted by “peak oil” and the biofuel perversion of using food to drive cars and trucks in a starving world. Indeed in the ultimate obscenity Richard Branson’s Virgin airline has recently used biofuel to partly fuel a flight from London to Amsterdam, an act that drew critical condemnation from environmentalists (see: http://abc.net.au/…/stories/2008/02/25/2171511.htm). In short, diversion of agricultural land for biofuel has three major problems. Biofuel (A) drives up the world price of food in a global marketplace; (B) can be associated with a huge “carbon debt” from release of soil carbon, whether from ploughed savannah or from deforested land; and (C) is currently associated with huge ecosystem damage. Let us consider these 3 problems in succession .

(A). Biofuel perversion is driving up global food prices

The United States is currently using about 9% of its wheat, 25% of its corn and about 15% of its grain in general to produce biofuel. The United Kingdom (UK) has committed to large increases in the use of biofuels over coming decades, has recently announced subsidies for biofuel and supports the European Commission (EU) target requiring 10 per cent of petrol station fuel to be plant-derived biofuel within 12 years. However the huge and intrinsically genocidal US diversion of 15% of its grain crop to biofuel production has had a huge impact already on soaring global food prices – the world is already facing a global food crisis with alarm being expressed by UN, FAO and other scientific experts. Simple Google searches for “global food crisis”, ”world food price crisis” and related phrases reveals massive current concerns.

The UK Chief Scientific Adviser, Professor John Beddington CMG, FRS (Professor of Applied Population Biology at Imperial College, London.) has described the devastating potential of food shortages as an “elephant in the room” problem commensurate with that from climate change and warns that biofuel diversion (e.g. for canola oil- or palm oil-derived biodiesel and grain- or sugar-derived ethanol) is threatening world food production and the lives of “billions” (see: http://theaustralian.news.com.au/….html).

Recently Finance Indian Finance Minister P. Chidambaram has said that it is “outrageous” that developed countries are turning food crops into biofuels while billions of people in the developing countries are living on the edge and trying to cope with escalating food prices (see: BBC News).

Numerous Mainstream media reports are describing how we now have a global food crisis with the spectre of widespread famine due to escalating grain and food prices – in a harsh, globalized market place those that cannot afford to buy food will simply starve unless rescued. Yet the UN and FAO are finding it acutely difficult to rescue such people. These food price rises in turn are because of the huge US and indeed Western biofuel diversion, complicated by climate change (impacting on drought in Australia and Canada), weather (e.g. too much rain the US), hedging speculation and diversion for livestock production.

The New York Times has recently reported that “rising prices and a growing fear of scarcity have prompted some of the world’s largest rice producers to announce drastic limits on the amount of rice they export. The price of rice, a staple in the diets of nearly half the world’s population, has almost DOUBLED on international markets in the last three months. That has pinched the budgets of millions of poor Asians and raised fears of civil unrest” (New York Times, March 29, 2008 “High rice cost raising fears of Asia unrest”).

There have been food riots over food prices recently in Guinea, Mauritania, Mexico, Morocco, Senegal, Uzbekistan and Yemen. Rice export bans by rice-exporting nations (Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Egypt and India) have raised world rice prices even more (see: http://nytimes.com/…/29rice.html).

The price of a wheat flour-based “roti” in Pakistan has doubled in the last year and food scarcity is of major concern to the UN and UN Agencies such as FAO (see “2008 – the Year of Global Food Crisis”) .

For an ALARMING graph of world food and wheat prices in recent years see the following report by Australian economists showing that the price of wheat in US dollars has DOUBLED in the last year: http://efic.gov.au. Part of this is due to the falling value of the US dollar but the alarming message is clear.

These food price rises are fuelled by the huge US and indeed Western (UK, EU) biofuel diversion PLUS Greenhouse Gas (GHG) pollution-driven climate change (impacting on drought e.g. in Australia and Canada), weather (e.g. too much rain in the US), hedging investor speculation and diversion of food for livestock production for “rich” people who can afford it (not just in the West but also in the burgeoning Asian economies of China and India).

(B). Biofuel production is currently associated with huge CO2 pollution

We live in a World in which “money buys truth” and public discussion is dominated by lies, spin and slies (spin-based untruth). A devastating “slie” is that biofuels are supposedly “green” because the CO2 deriving from biofuel combustion is cancelled out by the CO2 sequestered by solar energy-driven photosynthesis. However this facile analysis ignores the release of carbon from the soil due to ploughing; loss of CO2 sequestration as a result of de-forestation; and other CO2-pollution inputs into biofuel production such as fertilizer manufacture, transport and mechanical agriculture.

Two major studies by US scientists and published in the prestigious US scientific journal Science have revealed the huge “carbon debt” associated with mainstream agricultural production of biofuels.

Timothy Searchinger and colleagues (“Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions from Land-Use Change”, Science 29 February 2008, Vol. 319. no. 5867, pp. 1238 – 1240) have found the following:

“Most prior studies have found that substituting biofuels for gasoline will reduce greenhouse gases because biofuels sequester carbon through the growth of the feedstock. These analyses have failed to count the carbon emissions that occur as farmers worldwide respond to higher prices and convert forest and grassland to new cropland to replace the grain (or cropland) diverted to biofuels. By using a worldwide agricultural model to estimate emissions from land-use change, we found that corn-based ethanol, instead of producing a 20% savings, nearly doubles greenhouse emissions over 30 years and increases greenhouse gases for 167 years. Biofuels from switchgrass, if grown on U.S. corn lands, increase emissions by 50%. This result raises concerns about large biofuel mandates and highlights the value of using waste products.”

Joseph Fargione and colleagues (“Land Clearing and the Biofuel Carbon Debt”, Science 29 February 2008, Vol. 319. no. 5867, pp. 1235 – 1238) have made even more dramatic findings:

“Increasing energy use, climate change, and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuels make switching to low-carbon fuels a high priority. Biofuels are a potential low-carbon energy source, but whether biofuels offer carbon savings depends on how they are produced. Converting rainforests, peatlands, savannas, or grasslands to produce food crop–based biofuels in Brazil, Southeast Asia, and the United States creates a “biofuel carbon debt” by releasing 17 to 420 times more CO2 than the annual greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions that these biofuels would provide by displacing fossil fuels. In contrast, biofuels made from waste biomass or from biomass grown on degraded and abandoned agricultural lands planted with perennials incur little or no carbon debt and can offer immediate and sustained GHG advantages.”

Biofuels can be renewable if derived from biomass from waste land e.g. through gasification of biomass to carbon monoxide (CO ) and hydrogen (H2) (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasification) and then subsequent Fischer-Tropsch catalytic conversion to hydrocarbons (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer-Tropsch_synthesis) or from oils from growth of prokaryotic organisms (cyanobacteria or blue-green algae) or eukaryotic organisms (green and red algae) (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algae_fuel).

However in the context of horrendous global poverty, a major decline in grain production, huge increases in grain price and increasing diversion of grain for biofuel generation (see: http://www.fas.usda.gov/grain/circular/2006/05-06/graintoc.htm), current means of biofuel production from human foods (sugar- and grain-derived ethanol, palm oil-, canola- and other oil-derived biodiesel) is a perversion and a crime against humanity, the more so when alternative cheap, efficient renewable energy options are technically already available (e.g. solar energy-based hydrogen-driven transport).

(C ). Biofuel production is devastating the biosphere

As outlined in (b) above, biofuel production is increasing CO2 pollution. The US Energy Information Administration gives a year-by-year summary of fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution for every country in the world (see: http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/iea/carbon.html ). However greenhouse gas pollution (methane, CH4, nitrous oxide, N2O, and carbon dioxide, CO2) comes not just from burning hydrocarbons and coal but also from land use – specifically, agriculture, vegetative decomposition and animal husbandry. A 2000 list of countries by greenhouse gas emissions per capita provides data with and without this land use component (see: Wikipedia). Land use contributes about 20% of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Thus out of 185 countries my own country Australia ranked 9th worst (with land use change) and 5th (without land use change). The tonnes of “CO2 equivalent” per person per year were 25.9 (with) and 25.6 (without land use change) for Australia, indicating the preponderant importance of fossil fuel burning to Australia’s “score”. However the land use component is very large for de-foresting countries such as Brazil, Indonesia and Malaysia.

Deforestation contributes about 15-20% of annual CO2 pollution in the world. Yet according to Sir Nicholas Stern: “For $10-15bn (£4.8-7.2bn) per year, a programme could be constructed that could stop up to half the deforestation” (see: http://guardian.co.uk/…/).

In addition to playing a vital role in global temperature homeostasis, forest ecosystems are sources for invaluable pharmaceutical resources (see my recent huge reference book: Gideon Polya, “Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds. A pharmacological reference guide to sites of action and biological effects”, CRC Press, Taylor & Francis, New York & London, 2003).

At an even more fundamental level, Balmford et al in the prestigious scientific journal Science (see “Economic reasons for preserving wild nature”) have estimated that for a variety of “biomes” (ecological systems) the total economic value (TEV) is about 50% greater when the resource is used sustainably as opposed to destructive conversion. Further, these scientists have found that the economic benefit from preserving what is left of wild nature is OVER 100 TIMES greater than the cost of preservation.

However over-riding these economic concerns is the fundamental concern over species extinction – the rate of mammal extinction is already one thousand times greater than for the fossil record (see: http://greenfacts.org/…/figure1-8-species-extinctions.htm). We have no right to destroy the irreplaceable biodiversity that is the common property of the world and indeed of the universe.

Conclusion

The world is already seeing the commencement of a re-run – on a possibly 100-fold greater scale – of the man-made World War 2 Bengali Holocaust in which 6-7 million people perished in Bengal and in the adjoining provinces of Assam, Bihar and Orissa under the merciless British “scorched earth policy” when the price of rice doubled and finally doubled again (see: http://open2.net/…/bengalfamine_programme.html). Ten years ago I published a book entitled “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History” (see: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com) in which I described horrendous man-made, market-forces famines in British-ruled India from the 1769-1770 Great Bengal Famine (10 million deaths or one third of the Bengali population) to the World War 2 Bengal Famine (6-7 million deaths in the Bengal region).

These catastrophes have been deliberately erased from British history and from general public perception – leading to the acute danger of History ignored yielding History repeated. My pleas for action to prevent further such catastrophes have fallen on deaf ears. Bengal is now acutely threatened not only from biofuel-driven global food price rises but also from inundation from global-warming-driven sea level rises. I am revising my book for a 2008 second edition that in itself will be a further testament to “History ignored yields History repeated”.

In January 2008 I took part in a BBC radio broadcast about the “forgotten” World War 2 Bengal Famine (WW2 Bengali Holocaust) that also involved 1998 Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen (Harvard, formerly Cambridge University, UK), Dr Sanjoy Bhattacharya (medical historian, Wellcome Institute, University College London) and other scholars.

I made the following general methodological point at the end of the program: “This isn’t simply an argument about rubbing out history. Scientists can help society through what is called rational risk management. It successively involves A, getting the accurate data. B, doing a scientific analysis. And then C, recognising this, taking action, changing the system, whether it’s a national system or a global system, to avoid a repetition.”

However Professor Amartya Sen concluded the program with the following profound point: “I think the fact that famines happen when they’re so extraordinarily easy to prevent – nothing in the world is easier to prevent – affects me. Being a Bengali I can’t say that it adds especially to that because this seems to me to be a basic human sympathy at seeing suffering all across the world which are completely needless.”

All decent people around the world must speak out to prevent this mounting, NEEDLESS global famine tragedy that is unfolding before our eyes.

Dr Gideon Polya published some 130 works in a 4 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text “Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds” (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London, 2003). He has just published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/1375/247/ and http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com); see also his contribution “Australian complicity in Iraq mass mortality” in “Lies, Deep Fries & Statistics” (edited by Robyn Williams, ABC Books, Sydney, 2007). He is currently preparing a revised and updated version of his 1998 book “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History” as biofuel-, globalization- and climate-driven global food price increases threaten a possibly 100-fold greater famine catastrophe (see: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya310308.htm) than the man-made famine in British-ruled India that killed 6-7 million Indians in the “forgotten” World War 2 Bengal Famine (see recent BBC broadcast involving me, Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen and others).

Growing algae as biofuel will not be taking valuable land areas that are needed to grow food on. Thanks to algaes impressive photosynthesis it will produce 15 times as much oil for a given area compared to other biofuel crops. Algae can also be fed CO2 directly from smokestacks.

So, has Shell finally seen the green light? Far from it actually.

Shell are just protecting their own interests. Now when the food and oil prices have increased, more and more companies are looking into alternative and cheaper ways, such as algae, to produce diesel.

Shell’s chief executive, Jeroen Van der Veer have, recently, criticized Europe’s climate targets saying the 20% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 are to “overstretched”. He thinks the targets could have “a demotivating effect” on those struggling to reach environmental goals.

So, even if Shell are to produce diesel fuel from algae it still remains an old fossil company that try to do everything it can to ensure a prosperous market for environment un-friendly and carbon-spewing fuels.

Image credit: Sarah Camp. Image licensed under a
Creative-Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works license.

This can be compared to 25% for corn ethanol and 93% for soybean ethanol. But one of the more interesting and positive result from the study was that the emissions created by switchgrass would be around 94% lower than the emissions from petrol. That means switchgrass would be almost carbon neutral.

Another positive thing with using switchgrass as biofuel is that it does not need to take up valuable land areas. Kenneth Vogel explains that switchgrass only needs to be grown on secondary croplands. And the switchgrass only needs to be planted once as it returns year after year.

Rainer Zah, head of the Life Cycle Assessment & Modelling group of the Swiss Materials Science and Technology research institution, EMPA, in Saint Gallen, acknowledges that switchgrass seems to be a very promising fuel but he worries about its dinitrogen oxide emissions, a more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

Image credit: AdsitAdventures. Image licensed under a
Creative-Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works license.