Biofuels: Bridge or Dead End?

I spoke to the Minnesota Renewable Energy Roundtable last month, which resulted in a fascinating glimpse into the dynamic and controversial world of emerging energy options in America. In the audience were business leaders as well as several members of the State Senate, including the Speaker, as well as his predecessor. Many are right in the middle of the increasingly heated debate about ethanol in our energy future.

More cars in Minnesota run on E85 blends (gasoline and ethanol blends where fuel content is 85% ethanol) than in the rest of the country combined. This has created jobs and a resurgent agriculture industry. It has also enabled farmers to step forward as contributing to energy security for a country caught in the dilemmas of dependence on oil imports on the one hand and fighting oil-financed terrorists on the other. But recently, the agriculture ethanol producers have come under a lot of heat from academic studies that say that corn-based ethanol is worse than gasoline from a CO2 viewpoint. This public debate has been fueled, not surprisingly, by media seemingly more interested in selling newspapers and airtime than helping in the transition to a long-term sustainable energy system.

At a small lunch after my talk, the head of the one of the largest growers' associations asked, "With all the heat we are taking today, is it possible to say that biofuels are a part of a sustainable energy picture?"

I responded that the answer was definitely, "Yes," from my perspective. But I told him that food-crop-based fuels must be seen as a bridge to a longer-term vision of biofuels that significantly reduce the total carbon footprint of our energy system, and that the growers needed to be part of building that bridge, rather than just defending what they are doing today.

The country of Sweden is a world leader in biofuels, with the northern part of the country committed to being the world’s first economically advanced “bioregion,” running its entire economy based upon renewable resources and sustainably harvested biofuels. Today, they are opening some of the most advanced ”second generation” cellulosic ethanol production facilities, using forest waste products as input. Though they started with ethanol from food crops fifteen years ago, they see none of their biofuels coming from food crops in the future.

Per Carstedt, a leader of the bioregion movement, consults with a dozen regions around the world, funded by an EU grant, to develop long-term biofuel strategies. He is convinced that sustainably harvested biofuels can be a significant part of the energy picture in diverse settings. But in our first interviews with him over two years ago for The Necessary Revolution, Per told us that, “The biggest danger to the whole movement is opportunism – people who jump on the bandwagon to exploit market conditions without a longer term vision for the energy system of the future.”

Carstedt has his own picture of the bridge from fossil fuel economy to one where biofuels play a major part in the long run. His six interlinked elements of the chain not only include feed stocks and production but also the need to create the right sorts of vehicles (a large percent of cars sold in Sweden today will run on 100% ethanol) and knowing the external impacts, like the C02 footprint, and eventually setting up the right overall industry rules (like carbon markets that create an effective cost for green house gases) and government regulations. In short, this bridge goes well beyond opportunism.




I left Minnesota thinking that what we need first of all is a different political climate, one that supports learning and minimizes finger pointing. Creating healthy rural economies is a priority around the world. If this can include new sources of energy that create entrepreneurial opportunity and jobs while restoring topsoil and healthy water use this can be a win for all. Energy security will surely be an increasingly central issue as well. But most of all, in my judgment, dramatically accelerating the transition away from fossil fuels and dramatically reducing the carbon footprint of our economies is urgent. “I got into all of this because of climate change,” says Carstedt.

We need to stop throwing rocks at farmers converting corn to biofuels and start all working together to agree on where we want to be in 20 years. In other words, can we agree on what a truly environmentally sound energy system would look like? This is a crucial strategic task - teaching this agreement - that governments, NGOs and businesses alike must assume responsibility. Then, we could reasonably expect every player, in what will be an increasingly diverse and complex field of energy producers, distributors and customers, to be able to answer the simple question, “What part of the bridge are you building?”