Biofuels are Here To Stay: What To Do About Food Supply?
Editor’s Note: I’m in Houston, TX, this week, celebrating the International Year of the Planet by posting on topics covered at the first ever joint meeting between the American societies of Soil Science, Geology, Crop Science and Agronomy. With a significant focus on biofuels, this conference should be rife with interesting materials.
In a wide-ranging session on Tuesday dealing with global biofuel, food security and poverty issues, there was plenty for the presenters to disagree about — but the one thing they could all concur on was that the biofuel genie is out of the bottle and he’s here to stay.
Several times during the session the presenters highlighted the fact that biofuels have finally brought an inherent value to agriculture that was previously missing. This, more than anything else, is why biofuels are not going to go away. Up to now, the lack of agricultural value has caused a deep deficiency in the level of funding and investment that governments worldwide have provided for their agricultural security and infrastructure.
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As pointed out by Dr. Kenneth Cassman, a professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, energy and food consumption are linked to human wealth. As a society’s wealth increases, its energy consumption rises far more quickly than its food consumption – in fact, food consumption eventually plateaus because people can only fit so much into their stomachs. This very fact is leading to a revolution — the result of which will be that, in the future, we will view fuel as a more important outcome from growing crops than food.
So, if biofuels are here to stay, how can the global community prevent millions of people from falling into famine due to competition of food land with biofuel land when biofuel land turns out to be more profitable? Several ideas were floated, but the most agreed upon solution was that crop yields need to be drastically improved to pack more food value into the same amount of land — otherwise, the amount of crop land needed to feed the world will lead to an environmental catastrophe of its own.
The argument came down to a major difference between those that think the only answer is to genetically engineer our way out of the problem and those that think the simpler and better solution would be to provide farmers with the education, equipment and strategies to bring their currently low yields up to the maximum yield possible without spending huge amounts of resources on research into genetic modification.
It was a clear and stark difference: those in the genetic engineering corner think that the panacea of GMOs can provide all of the above: higher yields, drought resistance, pest resistance, and crop nutrient use improvements. But those in the non-GMO corner are skeptical of these claims, and feel that the money currently sunk into genetic engineering research might be being wasted.
The trick, the non-GMO group says, will be to simultaneously increase yield and reduce the environmental impact of farming. It’s very easy to increase one at the expense of the other, but turns out to be very hard to find ways to do both together — and without a huge diversion of money from the current glut the biotech industry is receiving to more traditional sorts of agricultural research, that goal may be damn near impossible to reach.
Dr. Cassman’s closing points sum it up rather perfectly:
“For those of you that do think that genetic engineering is going to deliver on many of these promises — quantum leaps in yield, drought tolerance, nutrient use efficiency — I feel it’s a lot like the problems we face in the world financial system today. There’s no transparency.”
“If [the genetic engineering boom] had happened 30 years ago, much of the information underpinning those claims would be in the public domain. We’d be able to look at it, and challenge it and see if it’s real.”
“We’re in a very dangerous system now where the policy makers believe [what the biotech companies say] and then change what they fund and how they invest research dollars nationally and globally [to divert money to the biotech industry]. The end result is that these [biotech] companies are telling them what they have in the pipeline and the policy makers don’t realize that what [these companies] are selling is seed, and they have no responsibility to publish the underpinning science.”
“We’ve got to be very careful here as a global community. We have such a great potential now to harness the value that biofuels have brought to agriculture. All of our careers we have fought because agriculture has no value, and countries were not investing in it because there was no value in it. The world bank told you to build a road to a resort on a beach, don’t build a road to an agricultural market inland because our financial analysis tells us it’s not worth it.
“We finally have a chance for true agricultural value, we have got to get it right this time.”
Regardless of how we get there, we must plan to meet the needs of 9 billion people who are much wealthier and have a much higher demand for energy than food.
The final point that all participants agreed on was that our current funding portfolio will not get us there. There has got to be a global concerted effort by all economic superpowers to increase yield and reduce competition between biofuels and food by funding research that has, for a long time, been virtually ignored.
Panelists participating in the discussions were: Dr. Kenneth Cassman, Dr. Adam Liska, Dr. Martin Bohn, Dr. Hernán Ceballos, Dr. Peter Hazell, Dr. David Zilberman, Dr. Wilfred Vermerris, and Dr. Mark Winslow.
Other Posts From the Joint Meeting in Houston:
- How Much Oil is Actually Left On This Planet? Should We Care?
- Pro-Poor Biofuel Crops: Sweet Sorghum and Cassava
- Biofuels And Security: Shedding My Western-Centric Worldview (Opinion)
Image Credit: existentist’s Flickr photostream under a Creative Commons license.
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October 9th, 2008 at 1:16 am
this article deals with the very aspect of our food demands as well as the economy crisis.
October 9th, 2008 at 6:44 am
There exists plenty of land to sustain the competing demands of food and bio-fuel. The problems seen in the past couple of years are a result of government mandates and the lag that occurs as any industry responds to massive demand.
October 9th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
Adam, this is a reply to your post on gm-volt.com. You wrote:
” Hello, I am a writer for http://www.gas2.org and one of my readers had a question that I would like to follow up on. There are millions of urban dwellers, like my reader who lives in a 3rd floor condo walk up, that do not have access to an outside electrical outlet.
What options do these people have in re-charging the volt? ”
I have an idea. An arm which extends automatically from the car to the front right corner, finds a special type of socket and plugs in, then recharges (or sells back to the grid) while acting as your ‘energy’ agent on your behalf via interacting with a neutral cooperative.
More detail:
The socket:
Has 2 or so infrared beacons and wireless (infrared) TCP/IP connectivity. When the car connects to the plug it does a DHCP request and becomes a firewalled node on the internet. Designed to handle higher current and voltage than the chevy volt would need, incase capacitor or other quick charging technologies come to market and incase a semi-truck of the future wishes to charge from the socket.
The arm & plug:
A standard distance and area away from the front right corner of all vehicles, including semi-trucks, will be determined. A mechanical arm will be designed for a car like the volt, and mounted in a way where the arm can extend towards that specified area where a socket is expected to be. Via infrared (or other means) it will identify the socket’s location and determine the correct angle to insert the plug into the socket. It will then establish communications with the socket.
The cooperative:
A cooperative similar to the business model of Visa will be a non profit and neutral energy trading company. It taxes transactions to fund itself and perhaps expansion of the socket installations nationwide.
How it would work:
The car would park in a parking space, or their own garage, or in a parking lot, etc. The car would be programmed to determine automatically if it should charge, or even sell back its energy. The driver could override, otherwise the car would automatically extend the arm using the infrared beacon of the socket to find it and insert at a correct angle. The car would become a node on the internet and contact the owner of the socket and the cooperative. If electricity is to be purchased the car could use some credits available from when it previously sold (or loaned) electricity to ‘the grid’. Either way, the car will get its electricity at an automatically negotiated price and agreement.
The car owner and utility companies could ‘trade’ electricity. The car could gave back 7 units of electricity during peak hours, and the electricity company would give them 10 units of electricity that night.
Battery leases involving the power companies could include sharing provisions which are accomplished by the network connection and automatic charging. If you don’t want to pay for the full cost of your battery, perhaps you could share the battery with a utility company.
The car would be your ‘energy’ agent and act on your behalf, the cooperative would neutrally make it happen the way visa makes transactions happen. If your car knows your driving a long distance, it could make wise decisions to lower cost and perhaps coordinate where you stop and eat. Perhaps energy credits could be traded for gasoline.
If curbs were rebuilt, with wiring and sockets, you could charge on the street.
If your apartment manager needs to be motivated to wire up his place, some of the cost could be covered by the cooperative via a tax on some/all transactions. The system would be setup to feed itself in order to reach critical mass, and government tax incentives would be involved.
death to oil – http://www.oiljihad.org
October 9th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
I send to me that one part of plant should be used for food and other parts should be use for fuel. Wheat for example. The seeds are use for food. The straw can be used for biofuels. killing two brids with one stone.
October 9th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
Micheal,
This was one topic discussed during the session. The type of crops you’re talking about are referred to as “Pro-poor” energy crops. I’ll be posting an article on this topic in the next few days because it warrants further attention.
Although I applaud your thinking, making cellulosic ethanol is something that will be out of the reach of most developing countries, so crops like wheat won’t work to kill two birds with one stone. There are other crops, however, that produce food, fermentable sugars, livestock feed, and burnable biomass all at the same time – hence can use traditional means to produce ethanol (straight fermentation of the sugars). I’ll be covering a couple of the most promising of those in the upcoming post.
October 9th, 2008 at 10:48 pm
This is such a lame discussion. The percieved problem does not exist.
Ethanol, bio-diesel, methane, bio-butanol, hundreds of food ingredients, thousands of industrial chemicals, plastics and many various animal feeds are all co-products derived from corn.
American Agriculture is producing all the corn based food, pharmaceutical, chemical and feed ingredients that the world markets will bear. We can not produce more food, chemicals or feed without collapsing the corn based markets, just like the real estate market crashed.
If the markets all double, we will simply double the production of corn. Anyone that tells you we can not do so is ignorant of the basic facts of American Agriculture.
The next high protein food ingredient, pharmaceutical, industrial chemical and animal food source that will have to crowd its way into the world economy is green algae cake, a co-product of algae oil production. To be usable as a high protein food and feed product it needs to be grown in a non-sewage medium, as millions of tons will be. It will compete with corn as a high protein feedstock for many applications
Our problem in America is always growing too much food, never a shortage of food. That will not change for a very long time, if ever.
larry hagedon
October 9th, 2008 at 11:01 pm
i’m sorry.. but biofuels are stupid… save the planet by cutting down the trees & …making gas out of them? how about some good alternative power sources instead? or at least.. more cars that run on used disgusting fryer grease that no one wants to touch to begin with. or in short- there’s gotta be better ideas out there than this…
October 10th, 2008 at 6:17 am
Since cars will be running on food, perhaps the biotech engineers will find a way for humans to run on petroleum.
October 10th, 2008 at 8:03 am
@web, it isnt about cutting down *trees*, its crops that grow annualy
October 10th, 2008 at 9:30 am
“i’m sorry.. but biofuels are stupid… save the planet by cutting down the trees & …making gas out of them? how about some good alternative power sources instead?”
ok, perhaps not stupid, but web’s comment raises a very valid point..
October 10th, 2008 at 11:58 am
If Biofuels are causing food prices to rise in the grocery stores then they need to find something else!
Jiff
http://www.privacy.de.tc
October 10th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
The article first highlights the need for higher food-per-hectare efficiency and then concludes that there should be less competition between food and bioenergy.
As an economist I’d like to reply: We need MORE competition, because competition is the driver behind efficiency. I do not say that we have flawless markets (far from it, indeed) and that there should be no concerted efforts, but giving food producers an edge beyond a less distorted market will lead to less efficiency in agricultural production.
October 10th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
No has addressed the meat issue either. If the trillions of calories of vegetation that are used to feed cattle fed humans every year we could “save” a huge mount of energy. I love a good steak but I would be willing to eat vegetarian at lunch everyday to add to the pool. Who will make that little change with me?
October 10th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
Biofuels are not here to stay. The biofuel “solution” would cause more economic problems than it could ever hope to solve. The fuel burns less efficiently than regular gas and the processing requires so much oil and resources that it just plain old doesn’t make sense. After the election, all government subsidies for biofuels will slowly melt away…republican or democrat.
Other alternatives like electric and hydrogen power should get the research grants and biofuel development should be put down.
October 10th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Larry larry larry.. You talk about ignorance…boy oh boy. Let’s talk about simple economics of the equilibrium of demand and supply. There is a pre-determined amount of farm land in the United States. If the demand for Corn doubles (say to meet the heightened demand for biofuel due to misguided government subsidies), then yes farmers will plant corn to keep up with the current cash crop. If a farmer moves away from let’s say…wheat to corn, then the wheat market takes that hit. That’s why beef and milk prices have sky-rocketed. Cows need to eat…the price of their feed goes up due to lowered supply….food prices rise and people suffer.
It’s all give and take and biofuels absolutely do cause this very significant problem.
October 10th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
Jack Herer has a $100,000 dollar challenge for any of you smart guys who want to make some money. All you have to do is prove him wrong on the advantages of Hemp as a biofuel. It grows up to 20 feet high and is loaded with cellulose. Grows without fertilizers and pesticides. Check it out Jackherer.com, scroll down to the middle of the page. Good luck making some money!
October 10th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
just rework the hole paying farmers not to grow stuff that will bring 36 million acres of farm land back on into action and save us tax payers 1.6 billion dollars. Give the manufacturing of bio-fuel a tax break. Obviously we would need to do something to help the farmers work those 36 million acres but I doubt it will cost 1.6 billion bucks a year (about $44.45 an acre). I don’t know about ya’ll but I would much rather my money go back into the US economy whenever I fill up my car than over the the middle east (I don’t like them… they try and kill me)
Where I got some facts from
http://www.cascadepolicy.org/2005/10/14/freedom-fuel-how-and-why-biodiesel-policy-should-reflect-freedom/
October 10th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
I really don’t understand why the bio-fuel discussion focuses on food crops. We can’t eat the most productive oil producing (for diesel) and bio-mass (for alcohols) crops. The areas that produce them aren’t much good for food crops.
Of course we already pay farming companies to leave land fallow because we can produce far more than we can eat or profitably ship abroad. Higher prices for fuel usage of a crop (i.e. corn) vs. food usage is what will cause food shortages and run up those prices. Growing corn and wheat for food and plants like rapeweed or kudzu for fuel makes more sense.
The unproven bio-tech argument has mostly to do with efficiency and scalability. Which methods will produce the greatest efficiency at tens of millions of gallons per month production levels? That’s not something that needs to be decided now. The companies that will invest in and build the production infrastructure can require the proprietary details of the processes they’ll consider. They’ll sign NDAs and then evaluate the most promising technology. Any bio-tech startup company that doesn’t want to play can try to raise their own production money.
Right now I’m not concerned with fuel production in the third world. Establishing a sustainable fuel production infrastructure that eliminates imported fuel in the US is. That alone will free up enough petro-fuel and depress its price enough to allow the third world to develop prosperous high-energy economies. (Leave aside for now political and human considerations like dictators and greed celebrating cultures. Different problem. Different solutions.) Those economies will then be able to quickly adopt whatever methods prove to work best in North America, Europe, and Japan.
October 10th, 2008 at 7:42 pm
Why is there an argument between GMO and traditional improvements, we can and must do both. Places such as North America and Europe are pretty much maxed out on traditional improvements, and future improvements are more likely to come from GMO. In the third world, traditional improvements such as the use of fertilizer, crop rotation, artificial irrigation and pesticides can make a massive increase in output. Thus we’ll see developed countries go more towards the GMO route, and developing countries improve their water supply and do more traditional things because there is not a one size fits all solution.
October 11th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
It takes a pretty lame-brained American animal to turn food into fuel, proof; George Bush and McCain did it! while other crops provide more fuel per acre on poor, semi-arable land! Hemp, not dope, asshole, hemp! a similar plant but without THC, can provide edible oil, fiber and a multitude of useful byproducts to mankind and, but for a crooked and dishonest law passed in the 1930’s to protect old timey cotton farmers, grows wild here in the U.S. and Canada. The Canadians and Chinese have caught on to this, and are marketing hemp and its products as we speak! All we have to do is to plant the poorer ground, that will not grow food, to hemp, and harvest it for all the good we can get out of it! Real growth, real worth, real riches, all at home! Change the hemp laws and change the now very grim American economic picture! Don’t change? Die in abject poverty of the Great Depression!
October 12th, 2008 at 12:19 am
This is only a problem for people who have nothing important to do or think about. Have you heard of Salicornia? If not, you need to put your brain to work and google. What about ocean grown biomass?
Do you understand pyrolysis and gasification? Gasification is already being done in rural Indian villages using biomass agricultural waste. You can run a boiler for combined CHP or gas turbine generator combined cycle power generation from the syngas.
Although related to “jet science” it is not rocket science. (but you should know that Rocketdyne is working with Exxon to make better gasifiers)
June 18th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
Logar said on October 10th, 2008 at 8:03 am
@web, it isnt about cutting down *trees*, its crops that grow annualy.
—————————————————–
Nice one Logar, and what I have also mentioned in a few other threads, Annually is where the problem begins.
Are people going to wait until the crop rioens before they drive their motor’s, the black stuff is almost on tap, it onlyhas to be refined in order to use it, which is a dam sight fast than a crop ripening.
And the plot thickens
Yes there is plenty of land to grow lots of food fuels as I call them, but we will need an awful lot of them to make it work, a tank full of gas say 25 gallons would need enough materials to make that gas which could alsofeed one person for a year, also the fertiliser to nourish those crops on the poorer soils that have been mentioned comes in the form of amonias which 70% of it comes from OIL.
As 800 High Tech said, I too believe bio fuels have no future and we should be looking at the sun for our energy needs, one days rays is equivalent to 20 times the planets energy for one day.
One @ Larry here, do yourself some reserch to see how your crops are nourished and does he remember the dust bolwls in the Lower states way back last century
if one simply keeps taking out and putting nothing back you end up with a mall nourished baby who quickly dies when he needs to fight of the famine.
The experts already know the maths, bio fuels are a very tiny snippet at what we would need for just our cars alone.
China are estimated to need an extra 300 million new cars in the next 10-20 years, its simply never going to work after oil has gone.
As a family here we are a long way set to live without the oil and why I advise people in their comunity to learn at least some the necessary skills which is going to feed and cloth your family in the comming furure, and how to protect yourselves and what you have got because your gonna need too, many times more than you need to today, history has a nasty habbitt of repeating itself.
Do you honesty think that the very rich are going to give back which they took from us, the very ritches that the lord gave us all when we have nothing left, I think you will find them trying to slot back into the society from which they stole from, call me what you like but don’t call me stupid, that I am not.
An Amish like mentality might get you an awfully long way down the road, especially when your pick up truck is out of gas.
June 18th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
I forgot to mention
Lets take the scenario that bio fuels from plant material takes off and it needs to balance out and come up to the same kinds of output per head of population for when the black stuff runs out, does one actually know how much crop would need to be grown in order to feed one of those massive tractors for a day, and the list goes on, these are the types of answers we all need, not what we can do,but how we do it.
The oil as it starts to get rarer is going to start costing many times more, if we leave things too late like a lot of experts are saying we are fast approaching that cut off point, does one know how many men and animals is it going to take to plant these huge areas and how long would it be before the crops are ready, taking into account that all these are seasonal collections, what of the off peak times.
Is growing more food than you could possibly do anything with worth all the energy wasted in doing so.
Will there be enough fuel left for next season, where are we going to take over in the world in order of making those countries grow food for our fuel while they starve, I’m sorry for all the questions here,but they are feasable ones don’t you think.
The bigger picture is very frightening don’t you think all constructive critisism welcome here.
June 18th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
I hope I don’t get into too much trouble raising some of the question that I have, so I will help the thread along a little more here.
Take you average farm fuel bill, it could be any typical farm,lets godown the wheat contractor route where the boys follow the harvest down through the wheal belt of North America, ask them how much fuel they use, not cost just quantity.
Now here’s a clue to how much labour it would take to come close to just one barrell of Brent crude, how does 12 men working for a whole year grab you, that’s what it would take to make up the difference for the energy we get from one barrell of oil 42 gallons of best crude, doesn’t seem real does it, but its official.
If we don’t feed the garen of eden with a replacement that oil brings, you end up with a smaller and smaller crop, in the end the land dies and the food with it.
June 18th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
My last for no honest, please don’t ban me off,there are still a few more question I would like some ideas returned.
Take the drought resistant crop or plant, these are genetically modified to survive in the harsher climbs not the harshest but harder areas where other crops would nor manage to survive.
What happens if there is no water that season to germanate the seeds or enough water to get the crop to a deent seed head in time before the real drought hits, will that crop be lost or can it survive until next season and carry on where it left off.
How many people are intrested in the GM crop for fuel versus food, will there be any choice as to what we had as long as it was food and fuel from GM.
Did you know that our deserts grow every year and have always done so, is this an indication to the planet warming up over the last few thousand years, how much have they grow in that time, I would ask some of theses question if there waere the threads but there are not so please forgive me,because they are all headed towards the food thing.
The driest areas of the planet are always the largest no viable ones, if we continue to develope crops for these types of land, then we better start with more research,because many African countries are dieing off fast, there has already been ugly scenes and compatition for vuable land and food, try telling thesespeople that they must grow fuel crops and the list goes on and on.
I really think Doctor Cassman is spot on,when he says we will hold fuel more important than food, but he is only a professor, and a car is a car, nuff said I think.
June 27th, 2009 at 6:35 am
Incredible info,, Will definitely come back again
September 28th, 2009 at 2:56 am
Grow the energy in the ocean if you can tame it.
Grow what you like instead of food and we will all die.
Bio anything is costing us very dearly, at 25 acres of corn for one tank of fuel for every vehicle on the planet and we would all die,
Bio fuel anything is destined to die out any time soon.
WAKE UP PEOPLE because you will soon be walking to your place of work to grow the fuel you would want to use in your SUV.