The politically astute amongst you may have noticed that recently there has been the odd disagreement between the industrialised West and certain other nations sitting on large deposits of oil. The current oil situation has several obvious problems; local and global security concerns can have a large effect on oil prices, a major driver of the modern economy; unfriendly agents can exert political control over the supply of oil via trade embargo or through acts of terrorism against processing facilities; and finally we all know that emissions of harmful chemicals as a by-product of oil use contribute towards global warming, health problems, and other ecological effects. Short of turning France into a windfarm, turning our SUV’s into bicycles, or inventing the “transporter” out of Star Trek, we have to look at our options. One of these is “biofuels”, defined loosely as fuel derived from biomass. A recent event held by the Foundation for Science and Technology (hosted at the Royal Society) considered the question “Can biofuels offer a significant contribution to low carbon energy supply?”

The distinguished panel consisted of Lord Oxburgh (chairman of D1 Oils), Sir Howard Dalton (Chief Scientific Advisor for DEFRA) and Mr Ingmar Juergens (Food and Agricultural Orginisation, Rome). Lord Oxburgh started the evening with a clear point: all biofuels are not created equal. At one extreme you have cow dung burnt on a fire for heat, and at the other extreme you have genetically modified super-crops refined to liquid biomass fuel for use in transportation. Within the category of crops that can be turned into biofuel, there was also great diversity in terms of cost, carbon output, unit of energy, environmental and social impacts, use of byproducts, and geographical spread. For instance, “first generation” biofuels such as rape seed oil looked attractive on paper, but a country like the UK would have to reserve huge swathes of land to cope with demand. Furthermore, we would move from being susceptible to political pressure to being susceptible to natural pressure such as weather fluctuations and crop disease. There is also another issue with the first-gen biofuels; many of them are also edible. Therefore if you start processing them in bulk for fuel as an alternative to energy, the cost of using them for food will increase dramatically, which could put some economies and ecosystems at greater risk. “Second generation” biofuels were typically non-edible and some of them rely upon sources such as forestry residues, or trees like Jatropha which produce no edible fruit and which grow in marginal land otherwise unsuitable for agriculture.

Given the requirement for vast swathes of land, it would seem that the developing world has a role to play, and Lord Oxburgh told of his company’s work in growing Jatropha trees in Africa, with the hope of creating local jobs and strengthening the economy. More sceptical members of the audience were suspicious of these claims for “trickle-down economics”, particularly given that many developing countries already have natural resources, such as oil, gas, and precious minerals, the benefits of which are mostly held by multinational corporations rather than local individuals.

One positive example that was raised several times in discussion was that of Brazil and her use of sugar cane ethanol as a major food source. Surprisingly, this actually came about as a result of the former dictatorship’s diktats than any long-term vision for the future. Here though the waters between science, policy, and economics got a big murkier. In certain parts of the United States, for instance, there is pressure from farmers’ lobby groups for ethanol to be a biofuel of choice, despite its relatively poor performance in comparison to other sources. Similarly, although developing nations are in a geographically advantageous position to grow biofuel crops, it will only be worth their while if they get a fair price and trade barriers are removed.

One final point that struck me was the question over how much readily available biomass was out there already; in the food we throw away, in sewerage, and from clothes and plant matter disposed of in landfill. This immediately brought to mind images of the “Mr Fusion Home Energy Reactor” from Back to the Future, and I left the event pondering how long it will be before we empty our bin bags into our petrol tanks…