REPORT: BIOFUELS POISED TO DISPLACE OIL
Biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel can significantly reduce global dependence on oil, according to a new report by the Worldwatch Institute.
Last year, world biofuel production surpassed 670,000 barrels per day, the equivalent of about 1 percent of the global transport fuel market. Although oil still accounts for more than 96 percent of transport fuel use, biofuel production has doubled since 2001 and is poised for even stronger growth as the industry responds to higher fuel prices and supportive government policies. “Coordinated action to expand biofuel markets and advance new technologies could relieve pressure on oil prices while strengthening agricultural economies and reducing climatealtering emissions,” says Worldwatch Institute President Christopher Flavin.
Brazil is the world’s biofuel leader, with half of its sugar cane crop providing more than 40 percent of its nondiesel transport fuel. In the United States, where 15 percent of the corn crop provides about 2 percent of the non-diesel transport fuel, ethanol production is growing even more rapidly. This surging growth may allow the U.S. to overtake Brazil as the world’s biofuel leader this year. Both countries are now estimated to be producing ethanol at less than the current cost of gasoline.
Figures cited in the report reveal that biofuels could provide 37 percent of U.S. transport fuel within the next 25 years, and up to 75 percent if automobile fuel economy doubles. Biofuels could replace 20–30 percent of the oil used in European Union countries during the same time frame.
As the first-ever global assessment of the potential social and environmental impacts of biofuels, Biofuels for Transportation warns that the large-scale use of biofuels carries significant agricultural and ecological risks. “It is essential that government incentives be used to minimize competition between food and fuel crops and to discourage expansion onto ecologically valuable lands,” says Worldwatch Biofuels Project Manager Suzanne Hunt. However, the report also finds that biofuels have the potential to increase energy security, create new economic opportunities in rural areas, and reduce local pollution and emissions of greenhouse gases.
The long-term potential of biofuels is in the use of non-food feedstock that include agricultural, municipal, and forestry wastes as well as fast-growing, cellulose-rich energy crops such as switchgrass. It is expected that the combination of cellulosic biomass resources and “nextgeneration” biofuel conversion technologies will compete with conventional gasoline and diesel fuel without subsidies in the medium term.
The report recommends policies to accelerate the development of biofuels, while maximizing the benefits and minimizing the risks. Recommendations include: strengthening the market (i.e. focusing on market development, infrastructure development, and the building of transportation fleets that are able to use the new fuels), speeding the transition to next-generation technologies allowing for dramatically increased production at lower cost, and facilitating sustainable international biofuel trade, developing a true international market unimpeded by the trade restrictions in place today.
Worldwatch Institute - June 7, 2006. Adapted from: http://www.worldwatch.org/node/4079
