The Trouble with Biofuels

Okay, so climate change is kind of a big deal. And as I'm sure you all know, one of the ways corporations and governments are trying to increase sustainability is by transitioning from fossil fuels to biofuels. This may sound well and good on the surface- clean energy is cool, right?- but biofuels cause environmental problems of their own.

Right now, high oil prices and a desire to switch to renewable energy sources have driven biofuel crop prices to record high levels. This, of course, makes the idea of cultivating biofuel crops incredibly appealing. But in order to grow crops, you need space, so where are people finding it? One way to get land is by deforesting. In Brazil, for instance, Amazon deforestation is becoming a bigger problem than ever (left). Deforestation has an awful synergistic effect in terms of harming the environment: the process of deforestation itself is a major source of carbon emissions; meanwhile, the forest that is being destroyed is a major carbon storehouse (during photosynthesis, plants perform carbon fixation when they use carbon dioxide to synthesize carbohydrates).

The surge in Brazilian agriculture leads producers to encroach on the Amazon at alarming rates, but the profits are so huge that the potential for long-term negative effects aren't enough to discourage farmers. The problem is simple: the cost of converting land to produce "clean energy" cancels out or even outweights the benefits of using biofuels. An article in February 2008's issue of Science used a "worldwide agricultural model" to calculate carbon emissions from the production of biofuels, including emissions from land conversion. The researchers found that, over a thirty year period, greenhouse emissions nearly doubled, and that the benefits of using biofuels would not make up for the damage inflicted by land-conversion for about 170 years.

Finally, I'd just like to throw out a brief discussion about another major problem with biofuels: by pumping grain into our cars, we're diverting it from people. The amount of grain it takes to fill a gas tank with ethanol could feed a person for a year. I don't know, but that seems pretty mind-blowing to me.

So what are we supposed to do about this? I think the problem is that we're ultimately going to have to find a way to live more sustainably by changing the way we do things, not just by finding substitute fuels that will allow us to keep on doing what we're doing; we have to reduce the amount of fuel we use, not just change it. And we may have to do that sooner and more abruptly than we'd like if gas and food prices just keep rising.