Renewable raw materials are the energy sources of the future. In order to successfully make any changes in the current political position regarding energy and the environment, all factors in the biofuels process chain need to be taken into account to weigh up environmental compatibility and the potential effects on society.
Biofuels are seen as an environmentally-friendly, CO
2-neutral alternative to
fossil energy sources. Even politicians more concerned about exploding petrol prices and the growing instability of energy supply rather than the potential climatic catastrophe, are calling for the accelerated development of renewable energy sources from renewable raw materials. The American President George W. Bush – who is not exactly the best friend of environmental activists – announced in his “State of the Union” address at the beginning of 2006 a “biofuel initiative”, which is intended to drastically reduce American dependence on foreign petrol through the clean, environmentally-friendly biotechnological production of ethanol. Jim Greenwood, President of the
Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) applauded Bush: “By significantly promoting the development of biorefineries, we would be able to cover 25 percent of our entire fuel demand by 2015 with ethanol made from harvest residuals.” Visionaries already see America’s Midwest – the country’s “bread basket” – as the energy production fields of the future.
Such enthusiasm gives food for thought. The IFEU Institute in Heidelberg has undertaken comprehensive investigations in which the environmentally relevant factors associated with production and use of different biofuels were assessed and compared with other studies. The analyses lead to different outcomes depending on the goals pursued.
The IFEU - Institute for Energy and Environmental Research in Heidelberg is an independent ecological research institute, founded in 1978 by scientists from the University of Heidelberg. The institute is exclusively financed through project-linked funds. The research projects and project appraisals are carried out on behalf of public bodies (federal government, states, city councils, the Federal Environment Agency, etc.), international institutions (e.g., the World Bank), non-governmental organisations and industry. The institute employs some 40 people, including 30 scientists and engineers working in different disciplines.
Considering that the reduction of the CO
2 concentration in the atmosphere and compliance with the Kyoto protocol is the major objective, biofuels perform worse than fossil fuels. The simple calculation that plant-derived energy sources only release as much CO
2as was previously bound by the plants, is only correct when
biomass is directly burnt. Intensive agricultural cultivation requires the production and use of fertilisers and insecticides which itself uses considerable amounts of mineral resources and fossil energy carriers. Therefore, when one takes into account the entire life of biofuels from production to conversion up to the utilisation of energy, the CO
2 balance is no longer neutral.
Biomass as CO2-neutral fuel (Source: Renew Fuel Project)
However, CO2 is only one of many gases that affect our climate. Another one is nitrous oxide (N2O), which is generated in the production of fertilisers. In addition, it is released by fertilised soils used for agricultural purposes. In the process chain of fossil energy sources, N2O is only released in low amounts. Dr. Guido Reinhardt, Head of the Division of Renewable Raw Materials at the IFEU Institute stresses the necessity of taking into consideration the environmental effects associated with the agricultural production of raw materials that are not associated with the use of fossil energy sources. This includes, for example, the acidification and eutrophication of surface waters due to higher phosphate and nitrate entry, the pollution with biozides and their metabolites and the pollution of ground water with nitrates.
The comparison of ethanol produced from sugar beets or wheat with automotive fuel shows that the ecobalance in terms of energy demand and greenhouse effect is in favour of the biofuels. The situation is similar when comparing rapeseed
biodiesel (in particular rapeseed oil methyl ester) with conventional diesel and the majority of other biofuels. An additional advantage of biofuels is their reduced
toxicity for humans and ecosystems in the form of increased biodegradability, reduced SO
2 emissions into the atmosphere, reduced particulate emissions in cities, reduced pollution of oceans through crude oil during the production and transport of petrol as well as oil-tanker accidents.
Costs for renewable energy sources
Biofuels will only have a chance on the market if they are competitive and if they are produced in sufficient amounts. The current world market price for ethanol produced from renewable raw materials amounts to approximately 400 euros per ton, equal to a crude oil price of 70 US$ per barrel as of May 2006. At the Biotechnology Days of the BMBF in Potsdam in April 2006, Professor Wim Soetaert of the University of Geneva said that renewable raw materials – on a weight for weight comparison – are already only half the price of fossil raw materials. Since ethanol contains less energy than petrol made from crude oil, the price, based on a comparison of energy output, is very similar. Nevertheless, the costs associated with different plant raw materials vary considerably. This variation in costs was demonstrated by the IFEU Institute’s comprehensive study entitled “CO2-neutral ways to future mobility using biofuels, 2004”. The least expensive was sugar cane; the most expensive was wheat and sugar beets.
IPU - "Integrated Biomass Utilization" (Source: HalmSon Braendsel)
The biggest limitation – at least in Germany and the majority of European countries – is the productive capability of agricultural land. This can be explained in simple terms with the following extrapolation: if all petrol used by German cars were to be replaced with
bioethanol produced from plants grown on German farms, one would need twice the amount of the entire German crop harvest (2005: approximately 46 million tons). The cultivation of this quantity of plants would require an additional area of the size of Bavaria. The massive import of bioethanol made from sugar cane cannot ensure the total energy supply that Germany needs. Brazil, by far the largest ethanol producer in the world, requires an ever greater quantity of bioethanol for its expanding market; at the same time, the Chinese, Indian, Korean and Japanese demand for Brazilian ethanol is on the increase.
On the road to energy- and environmentally-conscious politics
To date, bioethanol produced from crops and sugar beets in Germany is advantageous for a vast sector of industry. “Sugar companies seeking comfort in alcohol,” wrote the Financial Times, Germany, on 1st June, in a report on the new commitment made by the big sugar producers. For Guido Reinhardt, the introduction of bioethanol and biodiesel at German petrol stations has another kind of importance: The German public is slowly but steadily being introduced to the necessary, incisive shift in energy and environmental politics. The future is not just envisaged in terms of the production of bioethanol from crop and sugar beet surplus, but in the use of the entire biomass, including harvest residuals like straw and leaves. In order to be able to produce biofuels from these materials,
cellulose must be cleaved with
enzymes. The technology has been around for quite a while, but the required cellulose enzymes are expensive and still not available in the quantities required.
But there is a clear sea change happening. In 2004, the Canadian company Iogen, in cooperation with the Canadian government and Petro-Canada and Royal Dutch Shell, established a pilot facility for the production of bioethanol based on cellulose. The Danish company Novozymes A/S, the largest producer of industrial enzymes in the world, has recently announced a drastic reduction in the price of
cellulases used in the production of ethanol from crop residuals. This makes the production of biofuels from wood more financially viable. Wood is known to store more energy than all other plant raw materials. This would be the real breakthrough that could lead to an environmental- and climate-friendly energy production from renewable raw materials. The energy fields of the future would not be gigantic monocultures depending on fertilisers and biozides, but forests and plantation trees like poplars and willows grown under environmentally-friendly conditions.
EJ – 01.06.06
© BIOPRO Baden-Württemberg GmbH
For further information, contact:
Dr. Guido Reinhardt
IFEU - Institute for Energy and Environmental Research GmbH
Wilckensstr. 3
69120 Heidelberg
Phone: +49 (0)6221-4767 0
Fax: +49 (0)6221-4767 10
E-mail: guido.reinhardt@ifeu.de
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