Biofuels

Biofuels
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Can biofuels be sustainable?

Marbled white butterflies
In many cases, biofuels are grown at the expense of priceless wildlife habitats and the wildlife that depends on them, such as these marbled white butterflies.

The current biofuels on the market are referred to as first generation biofuels.

Most first generation biofuels are unsustainable because:

  • The greenhouse gas balance sheet often fails to add up – some biofuels deliver high greenhouse gas savings, others deliver very poor savings, or are even more polluting than fossil fuels.
  • The crops are land hungry and are in many cases being grown at the expense of priceless wildlife habitats and the endangered species that depend on them.
  • The crops are being used for biofuels instead of food, or market demand is encouraging crop switching: both trends are helping drive up the price of food worldwide, and this hurts people on low incomes worldwide.

The RSPB is calling on the UK Government to bring in strong greenhouse gas standards and sustainability standards to stop damage to wildlife before British consumers are forced to include any biofuels in their tanks.

The UK Government has been working to develop greenhouse gas and sustainability standards but these will not be implemented until 2010 at the earliest. Such standards should be mandatory on all biofuels now.

Meanwhile, the EU has recently proposed criteria and 'safeguards' to address growing concerns about the environmental impact of biofuels, but these proposals are completely inadequate – they are even weaker than the UK's criteria.

A more sustainable way?

Some biofuels, for example those made from waste oils, offer significant carbon benefits , without the environmental and social costs associated with land use change.

Some biofuels, for example those made from waste oils, offer significant carbon benefits, without the environmental and social costs associated with land use change.

It may be possible to source sustainable biofuels from areas of land that have no significant value for wildlife, ecosystem services or food production, although defining and identifying such areas poses a huge challenge.

It will take a great deal of work to put policies in place. Some standards aimed at sustainability have been developed, such as the sustainable palm oil standard but many biofuel crops, such as sugar cane ethanol, do not yet have any standards and these will take time to develop. Once in place, standards can be difficult and expensive to apply and need very robust third party enforcement.

Second generation biofuels could offer some solutions as they can be made from a far wider variety of organic substances, including crop wastes. Producing biofuels from crop waste could help solve the ‘land scarcity’ issue because, in theory, the same land could be used to grow food and generate biofuel from wastes.

Other possibilities include converting biomass such as wood and grass into biodiesel or producing fuel from algae, grown in huge industrial-sized vats. Companies are researching these technologies but they are not ready for commercial sale yet.

The greenhouse gas equation for these second generation biofuels could add up favourably. As with first generation fuels, all the new technologies will need to be carefully screened and monitored for their impacts on ecosystems, wildlife, and global food supplies.

The RSPB believes that sustainable biofuels could play a significant role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the transport sector, given the right safeguards. But the vital work of ensuring their sustainability must start now, and may not be achieved until a new generation of more efficient fuels have been developed and become commercially available.

Last modified: 25 February 2008