12
Biofuels and Bioenergy: Environmental and Ethical Aspects

The use of vegetable oils for engine fuels may seem insignificant today but such oils may become, in the course of time, as important as petroleum and the coal‐tar products of the present time.

Rudolf Diesel, 1912

Dear Future Generations,

Please accept our apologies; we were rolling drunk on petroleum

Kurt Vonnegut Jr, 2006

Solutions nearly always come from the direction you least expect

From The Salmon of Doubt, Douglas Adams, 2002

12.1 Introduction

The manufacture of biofuels is clearly an aspect of biotechnology and hence we include this chapter in this section of the book. However, we recognise that the topic is also relevant for climate change (Chapter 14) and to population dynamics (Chapter 15), so there are cross‐references to those chapters. As we discuss in Chapter 14, the rapid rise in the atmospheric concentration of CO2, leading inexorably to increased global temperatures, is largely attributable to the burning of fossil fuels. There is thus a strong and increasing pressure to move away from fossil fuels as an energy source, exemplified by the Leave it in the Ground1 campaign.

So, what are the alternatives to fossil fuels? Firstly, there is a range of ‘environmental’ energy sources, including wind, water, tides and the sun (see also Chapter 14). Indeed, in many countries, these renewable energy sources contribute extensively to the generation of electricity. I am currently writing this while travelling on a train across southern England and it has been fascinating to see that many hectares of land previously used for grazing animals or growth of crops are now devoted to arrays of photovoltaic solar panels. Secondly, there is nuclear energy. Although many countries adopted nuclear energy in the second half of the 20th century, its use has somewhat gone out of favour following a series of accidents in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Nevertheless, there are those who argue that nuclear energy is essential if the industrialised countries of the world are to reduce fossil fuel consumption fast enough to prevent runaway global warming, that is, that at the very least, nuclear energy will be needed as a stopgap in the transition period. This is not the place to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of nuclear energy2 but we note that, in France, a combination of nuclear and hydroelectric energy contributes a very large proportion of that country’s electricity generation.

Biofuels are among the mix of alternative energy sources that are contributing to and will contribute to reduction in the use of fossil fuels. At present, in early 2017, they comprise only a small fraction of the energy budget and a great deal of what they do contribute is in the form of biomass for direct combustion. Much of this comes from ‘traditional’ sources such as wood. Indeed, new wood‐burning biomass energy plants have been built in several countries, including the United Kingdom where about 1.8 million tonnes (2015 data) of wood is grown and harvested specifically for power generation. This will increase as some coal‐fired power stations are converted to burn wood pellets.3 It is claimed that such conversions will reduce the emissions of ‘fossil CO2’ by 85%. However, although traditional small‐scale use of wood, based, for example, on coppicing, is considered environmentally beneficial, groups such as Use Wood Wisely have criticised the large‐scale growth of wood to be used solely as fuel.4 But there are other newer sources of biomass, for example, giant grasses like Miscanthus; these are perennials that provide an annual harvest and that can be grown on marginal land that is less useful for agriculture. Alongside this there is also the well‐established technology of anaerobic digestion (AD), in which a wide range of waste biological materials may be converted to methane (‘biogas’). This may then be used as fuel, for example, to drive turbines for electricity generation or indeed to power motor vehicles. Thus, in several cities in the United Kingdom and mainland Europe, a small number of buses are running on methane generated by AD.5

Mention of buses running on methane leads to discussion of the biggest problem facing us in moving away from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources, namely, the provision of fuels for transport. The data in the text box provide a very clear reminder of this.

Furthermore, at the time of writing, oil prices on the world market are low while at the same time, many governments still subsidise the oil industry, directly or indirectly. These factors reduce the commercial pressures to find alternatives to fossil fuels. On the face of it, problem seems intractable. Nevertheless, in the agreements reached in December 2015 Paris climate talks, most governments committed themselves to taking steps to keep the global temperature rise to ‘well below’ 2°C (see Chapter 14). This will require extensive moves away from fossil fuels and that must include fuels for transport.

What then is to be done? Firstly, it is important that the movement from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources in the generation of electricity should continue unabated. Secondly, it is important that mass transport systems move to being all‐electric wherever possible. This is clearly highly feasible for trains and trams. Further, recent developments in engine and battery efficiency (in both storage and delivery of energy) have led to the adoption of electric buses in many cities across the world. The newest of these have ranges of up to 280 km on a single charge and, very importantly, may be charged quickly. There has also been progress with private cars with an increasing range of electric vehicles in production. Earlier models had a range of less than 150 km on a single charge that clearly limited their usefulness. However, more recent models have ranges of up to 500 km and their use looks likely to increase, although at present they only account for a very small fraction of the numbers of vehicles on the road. So that still leaves the majority of road transport, nearly all water‐based transport (with the exception of a few nuclear‐powered military vessels and a few small electric boats) and all of air transport needing combustible fuels. This is where biofuels come in.

12.2 Biofuels: A Brief Survey

Use of biofuels, in the form of biomass (including dried dung), goes back to the harnessing of fire by our human ancestors. On a more recent timescale, biogas production by anaerobic digestion started in the late 19th century.6 However, from here onwards in this chapter, we discuss those biofuels that are more usually considered under this heading, namely, those more recently developed mainly as liquid fuels for transport. The first group are the so‐called first‐generation biofuels, ethanol from sucrose and biodiesel from plant lipids. Both actually date back further than most people realise.

Ethanol has been used as a fuel on a small scale since the last years of the 19th century and the first part of the 20th; depending on the requirements of the particular engine, it could be used on its own or mixed in with petrol. However, a major change occurred in the early 1970s when, as a result of world trade conditions, Brazil decided not to sell the bulk of its sugar‐cane‐derived sucrose but to use it to make ethanol. It became compulsory for cars to be able to run on ethanol–petrol mixtures. In 1976, petrol sold at the pump had to contain 10–22% by volume of anhydrous ethanol and in 2003, that figure had been ‘tightened’ to 20–25%. The United States has also become a major manufacturer of fuel ethanol although in that country the bulk is made not by fermenting sucrose from sugar cane but by fermenting sugars derived from hydrolysis of corn (maize) starch. Between them, the United States and Brazil produce about 85% of the world’s fuel ethanol.

Biodiesel is made by trans‐esterification of plant storage lipids with ethanol, a process first achieved in the middle of the 19th century. Rudolf Diesel’s first engine ran purely on peanut oil biodiesel at its demonstration in 1893, although it was designed to run equally well on mineral oil. In the earliest years of the 20th century, the French government was keen to develop diesel engines that ran on peanut oil because peanuts (Arachis hypogea) were grown widely in some of France’s then colonies. In the event that did not happen and although there was some interest in biodiesel through the first half of the 20th century (especially in World War II), the majority of diesel vehicles ran on what we now call diesel fuel, obtained from crude oil. However, in the 1970s work began again on biodiesel and by the end of the 20th century it was making a small but significant contribution to the overall diesel supply. This has continued into this century, very much aided by regulations in several countries, including the whole European Union (EU), that fuels for transport must contain some biofuel (ethanol in petrol/gasoline and biodiesel in diesel oil). Thus, biodiesel is mixed in with conventional diesel oil in road vehicles and has also been used in trains and in aircraft. Indeed, the United Kingdom, the ‘Royal Train’ (the train used to convey the royal family) has been converted to run on 100% biodiesel. The main sources of lipid for biodiesel manufacture are lipid‐storing flowering plants, especially sunflower, oilseed rape and soybean, but some is obtained from algae and microfungi. Overall, the EU is the world’s largest producer of biodiesel, followed by the United States.

As we discuss in more detail below, there is concern that growing crops for biofuels diverts land use away from food to fuel. However, this could be avoided if waste plant material could be used as a source of fuel. In Brazil, for example, there is a large amount of plant biomass left after extraction of sucrose from sugar cane. This is known as ‘bagasse’ and is currently used as a biomass fuel to generate electricity. Similarly, the amount of waste plant material (known as ‘corn stover’) left after harvest of corn/maize (whether for human or animal nutrition or biofuel) is very large. This waste plant material is the gateway to second‐generation biofuels. The bulk of the dry matter consists of polysaccharides, especially cellulose, which may be broken down to their constituent sugars for fermentation to ethanol. Further, the same process can be applied to specialist biomass crops such as Miscanthus. Thus, several ‘cellulosic ethanol’ plants have been established in the United States and in about ten other countries (although in early 2017, the United Kingdom only had research‐level facilities). Prior to hydrolysis of the polysaccharides, the plant tissue is ‘opened’ up by chemical or physical methods, including treatment with liquid hot water under pressure (not steam). Hydrolysis may be achieved either chemically or by using enzymes (or the microorganisms that contain the enzymes). Fermentation of the sugars released by hydrolysis is brought about by yeast but in order to deal with the range of sugars released from plant polysaccharides, the yeast may be genetically modified to increase its metabolic versatility. There has also been some progress in developing ‘self‐digesting’ corn: corn that has been genetically modified so that as the waste plant biomass starts to senesce, it produces hydrolytic enzymes that break down the polysaccharides prior to dehydration; yeast may then be employed as just described.

Then there are third‐generation biofuels, biofuels whose production avoids completely the use of agricultural land and especially biofuels produced from algae. Algae, and especially microalgae, have several clear advantages over higher plants. The first is the most obvious: they do not need large areas of land for their growth but instead may be grown in open ponds, or in various types of closed system, including photobioreactors. Thus, for a given area of land, using the land for growth of algae has the potential to produce between 10 and 22 times7 the amount of biofuel than a higher plant biofuel crop grown on the same area. It has been estimated that, even at the lower end of this range of differentials, it would take only 0.42% of the US land area (i.e. about 38,420 sq. km) to produce enough liquid fuel for the whole country.8 Further, the land allocated to algal growth facilities does not need to be of agricultural quality. Using algae as sources of biofuels would therefore greatly help the ‘food‐versus‐fuel’ problem that we discuss in Section 12.3.2.

The second advantage is that as a group, algae produce or can be genetically modified to produce a range of biofuels or biofuel precursors, including ethanol, butanol, biodiesel, petrol (gasoline), jet fuel and methane. Some have expressed concern about the possible escape of GM algae but this can be avoided by growing GM strains in closed systems.

Despite these advantages, there has as yet been very little commercial uptake of biofuels from algae. This is mainly because there is also a serious downside, namely, the requirements for optimum growth of the algae. Water is the most obvious; algae are aquatic organisms and their growth facilities require large volumes, which is a serious disadvantage in areas where water is scarce. The other two major requirements are nitrogen and phosphorus and some commentators have suggested that production of fertiliser for biofuel‐producing algae would produce more greenhouse gases than are saved by using algae as a source of fuels. If this problem cannot be solved, then using algae for biofuel production is clearly not the answer, or even part of the answer to the world’s liquid fuel problems.

However, some of the practices on which third‐generation biofuels are based are also relevant to fourth‐generation biofuels. As with third‐generation biofuels, these are not based on higher plants, but on organisms that may be grown in large quantities in liquid culture, in particular bacteria and microfungi such as yeast.

12.3 Biofuels: Ethical Issues

12.3.1 Introduction

The ethical case, especially in relation to climate change, for reducing very significantly our use of fossil fuels seems to us to be very strong (see Chapter 14 for a more detailed discussion). Similarly, the consultative report on biofuels9 produced by the UK Nuffield Council on Bioethics stated clearly that since global climate change is caused by overconsumption of non‐renewable hydrocarbons (‘fossil fuels’), there is a moral imperative to develop alternative fuels from renewable bio‐resources, including liquid biofuels for transport. However, ethical questions also arise. Thus, the Nuffield Council stated explicitly that the development of biofuels should be achieved within clear ethical standards. Indeed, in the first decade of this century, several environmental NGOs such as Greenpeace suggested that supporters of biofuels were ‘biofools’ firstly because production of biofuels from plants was not ethical or sustainable and secondly that for some biofuels at least, mitigation of CO2 production from fossil fuels was minimal or even non‐existent. While not denying the importance of the second point, we believe that it can be dealt with satisfactorily, as we have discussed elsewhere.10 Here we concentrate on what seems to us to be the most important of the ethical questions, all of which are related directly or indirectly to land use.

12.3.2 Can Biofuels Be Produced without Affecting Food Production?

We discuss the issue of global nutrition in Chapter 15. Here, we need to remind ourselves of the problem, neatly summed up by Professor Sir John Beddington, a former Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK government:

It is predicted that by 2030 the world will need to produce around 50% more food and energy, together with 30% more fresh water, while mitigating and adapting to climate change. This threatens to create a ‘perfect storm’ of global events.

The amount of agricultural land on the planet is decreasing both because of increased sea levels resulting from climate change (even an increase of 2°C is likely to lead to an average sea level rise of 1.7 m11) and because of the housing needs of the world’s growing population. Climate change has also been shown, on average, to have deleterious effects on crop yields, exacerbating the problem further. Further, just under 800 million people are severely undernourished (late 2015 data). It is acknowledged that poverty is a major factor in hunger – very poor people cannot afford to buy food – and it has been encouraging to see the number of people in food poverty creeping downwards from around 1.1 billion ten years ago. However, it is also true that increases in the world’s human population are outstripping increases in crop productivity. This raises concerns about any further losses of food‐producing land, even for the purpose of doing something regarded by many as highly desirable, such as biofuel production. So, what is the current situation? Overall, the amount of land devoted to biofuel/bioenergy crops more than tripled between 2005 and 2012. The rate of increase has slowed since 2012 but even so, many thousands of hectares are newly allocated to biofuel/bioenergy crops each year; some of this is virgin land, as discussed in Section 12.3.3 but a large proportion of the increase has been achieved by change of land use, implying that food‐producing capacity has been decreased. But is that actually true?

Biofuel production from plants, whether in the form of biomass or of liquid fuels, will affect food production either if farmers switch from a food crop to a biofuel crop or if a switch is made from use of a particular crop for food to its use as a source of fuel. We will consider examples from three countries in order to illustrate this. The first is the United Kingdom. The most recent available data show that about 2% of arable, potentially food‐producing land has been devoted to biofuel production. The main crops are wheat and maize for production of ethanol, oilseed rape for biodiesel and biomass crops, such as Miscanthus. Crops for liquid fuels – ethanol and biodiesel – make up 65–70% of the total.

The breakdown of starch from cereals and its subsequent fermentation to ethanol leave a protein‐rich residue that may be used as animal feed.12 Similarly, the separation of lipids from oil‐rich seeds leaves a protein‐ and carbohydrate‐rich residue that may also be used to feed livestock. The production of animal feed mitigates to some extent the loss of land for food production, a loss that in any case is small. Indeed, there has never been any indication that this has affected UK food prices.13 Nevertheless, the diversion of staple crops such as wheat to fuel production has attracted criticism from environmental campaigners who, although committed to the reduction in the use of fossil fuels, are also concerned about loss of food production across the world.

A more detailed examination of the situation regarding biodiesel in the United Kingdom clearly illustrates the realities of the food‐versus‐fuel debate. In the United Kingdom we use about 93 billion litres of oil per year and it is clear that we can never get anywhere near that figure with ‘home‐produced’ biodiesel. Let us suppose for a moment that all the agricultural land – about 6.1 million hectares – was devoted to growth of oilseed rape (Brassica napus). This can produce about 954 litres of biodiesel per hectare, making a total of 5.82 billion litres or about 6.26% of the total oil usage. Data such as these are relevant to any relatively small, relatively densely populated industrial countries in which agricultural land is at a premium. The key message here is that it will take a lot of land to produce enough fuel to meet even a fraction of the total required, much more land than can possibly be devoted to growth of fuel crops.

We continue the food‐versus‐fuel debate by consideration of the United States, which is the second largest producer of biodiesel after the EU (mainly using oilseed rape14 and soybean but with some contribution from sunflower oil).15 However, our main focus here is on ethanol produced by fermentation of sugars derived from corn (maize) starch. The rate of production in 2016 was about 42 billion litres per year. The rate had changed very little since 2014 but between the year 2000 and 2014, there had been a 6.5‐fold increase. This increase was achieved firstly by diverting much of the corn crop from use in animal or human nutrition to ethanol production and secondly by switching from other crops to corn. Considering the first of these, in 2012, the proportion of the corn crop used for ethanol production reached 40% and in absolute terms, the amount used to make ethanol exceeded for the first time the amount used in animal nutrition. Since 2012 there has been little further increase, although, in some states in the ‘corn belt’, the proportion has approached 50%. Inevitably, this has had knock‐on effects, which we may regard as unfavourable. Even though there has been a switch from other crops to corn, there has been a significant reduction (up to 20%) in the amount of corn exported from the United States.

We have focused on the United States as the world’s largest producer of fuel ethanol (it overtook Brazil in 2005) but the switch from nutrition to ethanol production also occurred in other countries. Did this have an effect on food prices? There was a marked increase in the price of staple foods in 2008 at a time when bioethanol production was increasing rapidly. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) stated that many more people had become ‘food‐poor’: while in wealthier developed countries most people found the increased prices to be bearable,16 this was not so in poorer countries. Further, a consortium of global organisations, including the World Trade Organisation, the World Bank and the FAO itself, concluded that one of the major factors in the price increases was the increase in biofuel and especially bioethanol production, with the knock‐on reduction in food production. Although we cannot attribute all of the ‘blame’ to the United States, its role as a major player in international food markets and in biofuel production means that its actions are bound to have effects that are widely felt.

There was also a more subtle knock‐on effect of the switch to ethanol production. Some farmers actually moved into corn (or increased the area of corn that they grew) at the expense of other crops. The majority of the latter were insect‐pollinated plants such as soybean.17 So, in addition to effects on food prices that we have just discussed, there was also a reduction in the number of bees in the areas most affected.

The third country to be considered is Brazil. We may regard Brazil as a pioneer in the production of liquid biofuels because of their long‐standing commitment, going back more than 40 years, to the production of ethanol from sugar cane. Several reports have shown that growth of sugar cane for ethanol has had no appreciable effect on food prices in Brazil,18 at least partly because there is so much available land for growth of both sugar cane and food crops.

However, returning to the wider global scene, there seems no doubt that in many countries, growth of biofuel crops has occurred at the expense of food crops. The steep rise in food prices in 2008 led to a demand for a halt in the switch from food crops to fuel crops. A consortium of relief agencies conducted a campaign entitled ‘Food not Fuel’, while the president of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, stated,19 ‘While many worry about filling their gas tanks, many others around the world are struggling to fill their stomachs. And it’s getting more and more difficult every day’ (notwithstanding the World Bank’s more favourable comments about Brazil). Indeed, in terms of difficulty, the human population of the planet is increasing by between 145 and 150 per minute (see Chapter 15), placing an ever more increasing demand on food production.

The ethical tension here is very apparent. The relief agencies campaigning for ‘Food not Fuel’ are also committed to mitigation of climate change. There are times when ethical priorities clash and this is one of them. This leads to the following questions.

Firstly, we note that pressure to use liquid biofuels has eased slightly, despite the urgency of climate change. Targets for adoption of biofuels for transport were lowered in 2010 in both the EU and the United States. This may be regarded as an interim measure until newer biofuels, not requiring use of agricultural land, become available. Some second‐generation biofuels, for example, are generated from waste plant material, such as corn ‘stover’ by breaking it down in order to produce ethanol. In this way, particular crops may be used for both food and fuel.20 Further there are biofuel crops that are not food crops, several of which do not need land of agricultural quality. The giant grass Miscanthus falls into this category. It is currently used as a biomass crop but it is also being developed as a source of second‐generation biofuel, as described above for corn stover. Having said this we also need to note that in the south‐west of the United Kingdom where we, the authors, are both based, most, if not all, of the Miscanthus that is grown is on good agricultural land.

Perhaps the most satisfactory answer to the food or fuel question is not to land‐grown crops at all but this will have to wait until biofuels produced from algae, fungi and bacteria come on stream. It has been claimed that appropriate species of microalgae can produce 300% more fuel than oilseed rape on a surface area basis. Some commentators suggest that by 2022 up to 40% of the world’s biofuels will come from algae and a further 5% from bacteria. It has also been claimed, as mentioned in Section 12.2, that all of the US liquid fuel needs could be met by biofuels derived from algae, grown in facilities that occupy less than 0.5% of the country’s total land area. This may sound impressive but it is also predicted that at the current rate of development and uptake of biofuels in the EU, total biofuel production within Europe by 2022 will only make up 10% of the EU’s liquid fuel needs. It is proved difficult to move away from fossil fuels.

12.3.3 Is Growth of Biofuel Crops Sustainable?

The food‐versus‐fuel conflict is only one of the land‐use issues associated with biofuels. Another is sustainability, which in this context is about whether an activity be continued without damage to the environment or depletion of natural resources. The Nuffield Council’s report, referred to earlier, recognises this as a very real problem. We noted in the previous section that some biofuel production is not sustainable in relation to the growth of food crops. Moving away from agricultural land was one suggested solution but examination of some examples of this reveals major problems in relation to the environment and to climate change. When a natural habitat is cleared in order to grow a crop, whether a food crop or a crop providing some other commodity, there is an immediate ecological cost. Whether the existing vegetation is burned or allowed to rot, the CO2 locked up in that vegetation is released to the atmosphere, and for some habitats that means a lot of CO2. Further, there is a loss of biodiversity as the natural vegetation is replaced by a monoculture. With some habitats, that loss of biodiversity may not be just serious but devastating.

These problems are clearly illustrated by reference to oil palm (Elaeis guineensis). This tree is a native of West Africa and has been used as a staple crop for at least 5000 years. It was also traded across the continent and there is evidence from Egyptian tombs that palm oil was a highly valued product. However, it was not farmed commercially by Europeans until the early years of the 20th century, initially in Africa but then in South East Asia. The first Asian plantation was established in Malaysia in 1917. However, it was in the period after the World War II and especially since the 1970s that its cultivation in South East Asia (and to a lesser extent in Africa) really took off. Thus in Indonesia, between 1975 and 2015, the area of land devoted to palm oil has increased 15‐fold and most of this increase has occurred at the expense of the native rainforests.21 The rate of forest clearance has slowed but even so, when we also take illegal logging into account, it is estimated that Indonesia will have no rainforest left by 2022.

It is obvious that palm oil has been cultivated since well before the development of liquid biofuels for transport. The oils (from the mesocarp and the kernel) have been widely used in the food industry and in the manufacture of cosmetics but are now also used in biofuel manufacture. Currently it is estimated that about 40% of harvested palm oil ends up the fuel tank. This provides us with an opportunity to examine in more detail the sustainability issue in relation to climate change. The rainforests are a major repository of fixed CO2 and clearing them releases large amounts of it to the atmosphere (as already briefly mentioned). Let us suppose for a moment that all the palm oil produced from the cleared land was used in biofuel manufacture. Would this negate the release of CO2 from the forest vegetation? The answer to this question is effectively ‘No’. It has been calculated that balancing the saving in fossil fuel against the increased atmospheric CO2 from rainforest destruction, it could take as long as 220 years for a plantation growing on land previously covered in rainforest to become carbon‐neutral.22 We can perhaps see why some NGOs used the term ‘biofools’, at least in respect of the use of palm oil and why many commentators, including one of the world’s major oil producers, state that palm oil is not a sustainable source of biofuel.

But carbon balance is not the only problem associated with clearing large swathes of rainforest. Replacing the very species‐rich forest with a species‐poor monoculture has a very deleterious effect on biodiversity (see Chapter 14 for more detail) with loss of habitat for hundreds of plants and animals. One example will suffice. The two species of orangutan are native to South East Asia; 80% of their habitat has been lost and both species are now endangered.23

12.3.4 Biofuel Production and Land Allocation

The third area of ethical concern relating to land use for biofuel production is often referred to as ‘land grab’ and was also highlighted in the Nuffield Council report. This means the displacement from their land of (usually indigenous) farmers and farming communities, very often without any consultation. In general, indigenous farming communities pursue their livelihoods by using local resources in a sustainable way. Loss of their land destroys those livelihoods, even if some are employed in the farming and processing of biofuel crops.

Focusing on the period between 2003 and 2013, GRAIN (an NGO) estimated that at least 300 ‘land grabs’ had occurred for biofuel production (especially oil palm).24 The total land area involved was over 17 million hectares, mainly in Africa (Figure 12.1), but also in Asia,25 South America and Eastern Europe. Investors from other countries, especially China make up a large proportion of the new landowners. The World Bank is largely in agreement with this estimate and further stated that ‘…these projects are not providing benefits to local communities. Environmental impact assessments are rarely carried out, and people are routinely booted off their land, without consultation or compensation… Investors are deliberately targeting areas where there is “weak land governance”’.26

Image described by caption.

Figure 12.1 Aerial photo of the lands taken by Addax Bioenergy for its sugar‐cane plantation in Sierra Leone.

Source: Photo: Le Temps/public domain. © Open Environments.

As mentioned above, land grabs lead to a loss of livelihood and clear infringement of human rights for the previous occupiers of the land. The Oakland Institute in California has looked specifically at Gambella, a region of Ethiopia. A major conclusion of their research27 was that the Ethiopian national government had ‘perpetrated human rights abuses in resettling indigenous communities…to allow for land investment deals to move forward’. The Institute also stated that they ‘…did not find any instances of government compensation being paid to indigenous populations evicted from their lands’.

It is thus very clear that the ethical standards set out by the Nuffield Council and also by the World Bank, in respect of land reallocation, are in many instances not being adhered to.

12.4 Concluding Comment

There is certainly great urgency in the need to produce non‐fossil fuels, highlighted by the October 2014 report of the IPCC (stating that fossil fuels need to be phased out completely by the end of the 21st century). Thus, production of biofuels has been regarded as a social and environmental good. Their use reduces our dependency on fossil fuels and is seen as a key strategy in the ‘battle’ against climate change. However, there is an ethical downside to the growth of biofuel crops and indeed to several aspects of biofuel production, notwithstanding the fact that there are differences in opinion on several of the ethical issues. Biofuel production is thus similar to several of the topics we discuss in this book: ethical issues arise that need to be discussed openly. If we are aware of the problems, then we can search more rigorously for a means to solve them. It will take good scientific research coupled with ethical wisdom and good governance to ensure that production and use of biofuels is indeed a social and environmental good.

Key References and Suggestions for Further Reading

  1. Achten WMJ, Verchot LV (2011) Implications of biodiesel‐induced land‐use changes for CO2 emissions: case studies in Tropical America, Africa and Southeast Asia. Ecology and Society 16, 14. 10.5751/ES‐04403‐160414 (accessed 11 September 2017).
  2. Brown LM, Hawkins GM, Doran‐Peterson J (2017) Ethanol production from renewable lignocellulosic biomass. In Biofuels and Bioenergy, eds Love J, Bryant JA. Wiley‐Blackwell, Chichester, pp 89–104.
  3. Bryant J, Hughes S (2017) Biofuels and bioenergy – ethical aspects. In Biofuels and Bioenergy, eds Love J, Bryant J. Wiley‐Blackwell, Chichester, pp 273–283.
  4. Clark PU, Shakun JD, Marcott SA, et al. (2016) Consequences of twenty‐first‐century policy for multi‐millennial climate and sea‐level change. Nature Climate Change 6, 360–369.
  5. Elliott L, Stewart H (2008) Poor go hungry while rich fill their tanks. The Guardian, 11 April 2008. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/apr/11/worldbank.fooddrinks1 (accessed 11 September 2017).
  6. GRAIN (2010) The World Bank in the Hot Seat. http://www.grain.org/article/entries/4026‐the‐world‐bank‐in‐the‐hot‐seat (accessed 11 September 2017).
  7. GRAIN (2013) Land‐Grabbing for Biofuels Must Stop. http://www.grain.org/article/entries/4653‐land‐grabbing‐for‐biofuels‐must‐stop (accessed 11 September 2017).
  8. Harvey F (2013) Biofuels plant opens to become UK’s biggest buyer of wheat. The Guardian, 8 July 2013. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/jul/08/biofuels‐plant‐wheat‐vivergo‐hull (accessed 11 September 2017).
  9. Jamieson CB, Lasco RD, Rasco ET (2017) Mangrove palm, Nypa fruticans: ‘3 in 1’ tree for integrated food/fuel and eco‐services. In Biofuels and Bioenergy, eds Love J, Bryant JA. Wiley‐Blackwell, Chichester, pp 133–142.
  10. Love J, Bryant JA, eds (2017) Biofuels and Bioenergy. Wiley‐Blackwell, Chichester.
  11. Lynch J (2017) Sustainability of biofuels. In Biofuels and Bioenergy, eds Love J, Bryant JA. Wiley‐Blackwell, Chichester, pp 261–272.
  12. Malaysian Oil Palm Council. (n.d.) http://theoilpalm.org (accessed 11 September 2017).
  13. Mitchell D (2008) A Note on Rising Food Prices. World Bank. http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/229961468140943023/pdf/WP4682.pdf (accessed 11 September 2017).
  14. Moran EF (2006) People and Nature. Blackwell, Malden, MA.
  15. Nuffield Council on Bioethics (2011) Biofuels: Ethical Issues. Nuffield Council, London.
  16. Oakland Institute (2013) Oakland Institute Exposed the Human Right Impact of ‘Land Grabbing’ in Ethiopia. https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/oakland‐institute‐exposed‐human‐right‐impact‐%E2%80%9Cland‐grabbing%E2%80%9D‐ethiopia (accessed 11 September 2017).
  17. The Orang‐Utan Project (2013) Palm Oil. http://www.orangutan.org.au/palm‐oil (accessed 11 September 2017).

Notes