Problems with Biofuels

Air Pollution

Burning materials produces fine particle pollution and other hazardous substances. Communities around energy plants that burn waste or other materials have been found to suffer from various health problems due to the increased levels of toxic substances in their air.

Habitat & Biomass Loss

"many biofuels may actually emit more GHG than fossil fuels due to deforestation and land use change. In addition, deforestation linked to biofuels in Europe has led to biodiversity loss, land conflict, labor issues, and indigenous right issues in places as far away as Indonesia, Brazil, and Tanzania3.

Critics indicate biofuels not only compete with feeding a growing global population but also contribute to deforestation because some of these crops require a great amount of land, so forested areas may be cut down or burned to make way for agricultural expansion3.

Some of these crops have a low energy return. Soy and rapeseed, for instance, produce only 500 to 1000 litres of biodiesel fuel per hectare, meaning the life-cycle production and transport emissions in some cases exceed those of traditional fossil fuels4. These are so-called 'first-generation biofuels' - those derived from starches, sugar, soy, animal fats, palm and vegetable oil.

Currently, research also focuses on biofuels with no or low indirect land use change (iLUC) emissions. These are mostly non-edible crops, so-called 'second'  and 'third-generation biofuels' produced from feedstock that do not create an additional demand for land, including algae, straw, and various types of waste.

Gao et al. review the methodological difficulties in estimating the relationship between biofuel development and tropical deforestation in detail5. They argue it is difficult to detect direct links and to quantify these at the global level, due to limited data availability. These limitations include:

• lack of time series data on deforestation at sufficient resolution at global scale;

• lack of information on the geographical location of biofuel cultivation areas;

• much of the deforestation related to biofuel cultivation being indirect through displacement of other agriculture;

• much of the biofuel cultivation being very recent; and,

• that many biofuel feedstocks are multipurpose – biofuels often represent only a small proportion of larger food and food production systems.

Combined, these difficulties make it currently almost impossible to quantify the relationship between biofuel production and deforestation and to map it at the global levelv. iLUC is of particular concern, which refers to the fact that biofuel development often unintentionally pushes deforestation into new areas, and it can take effect in neighbouring regions or across the globe. Indirect effects of biofuel production are likely to increase; although several studies have been carried out, no estimation method has yet been accepted5. The rate of biofuel expansion will depend on many other factors, including land availability, enabling national government policies and foreign direct investment, as well as policy at an international level." - Climate Policy Info Hub

Food Security

Solutions

"Some experts suggest that the holy grail of an efficient biofuel is still obtainable, with much to be learned from past experiments. Others say we would be better off abandoning this techno fix, investing instead in electrifying the transportation grid to save energy, and rewilding former biofuel croplands to store more carbon." - A Liquid Biofuels Primer: Carbon-Cutting Hopes vs. Real-World Impacts

Electrification

Fuel Cell Technology

Re-Wild Biofuel Farmland

Organizations

Maps & Trackers

Methane Maps & Trackers

The Methane Maps & Trackers page is included because methane from sources such as landfills can be used as a biofuel.

International

• The Global Bioenergy Power Tracker (Interactive) "is a worldwide dataset of utility-scale bioenergy power facilities. It includes bioenergy units with capacities of 30 megawatts (MW) or more. The tracker provides separate data on each of the multiple facilities that typically exist at a particular location. Each of these facilities is referred to as a “unit.” The entire collection of units at a given location is referred to as a “power station.”
  
  The tracker includes every bioenergy unit at the 30 MW capacity threshold for operating, announced, pre-construction and in-construction power station units. In some cases, units may combust multiple fuel sources in addition to bioenergy. Each power station included in the tracker is linked to a wiki page on the GEM wiki."