Fuelling our future

Can we go “flat out” on ethanol? This is the issue at the heart of current debate over the viability of ethanol and biofuels as potential substitutes for at least a part dwindling of our petrol supplies. So let me look at the issues, as an observer without vested interests.

On the positive side, the experience of Brazil demonstrates unequivocally that ethanol can be produced more cheaply than the current cheapest oil - without subsidies. There has been a belated recognition of Brazil’s success now being registered in the international press.

Source: UNICA

Not all countries can produce ethanol from sugar cane as cheaply as Brazil. But many are close - including Australia, India and many of the tropical countries in Africa. For the latter, a little dose of technological assistance from the developed world would create an “ethanol zone” covering Brazil and Central America, India and South-East Asia and Africa, that is every bit as productive of liquid fuel as the Middle East is productive of oil today.

The difference, of course, is that growing sugarcane and producing ethanol in these countries would kick start their development efforts; free them from dependence on oil imports and the accompanying financial burdens; underpin their energy security; and drive their rural development efforts, thus bringing them out of poverty and guiding them, peacefully, towards democratisation.

Compare this with the high price of oil, and oil dependence, propping up unsavoury oil regimes throughout the Middle East, where the regime buys off popular discontent or makes war on dissidents (as in Nigeria) but never seems to get around to the job of industrial development.

I’ll come back to some more positives in a moment. But what about the negatives? Most of the counter-arguments come from the US, where ethanol is produced in a temperate climate largely from corn and grains. The counter-argument is that intensive agricultural practices utilised in the US corn belt produce ethanol that requires heavy energy inputs in the form of fertilisers, herbicides, and transportation. Some estimates (pdf 114KB) (note that this widely cited study does not even consider ethanol from sugar cane) put the net energy produced as zero or something very small.

But Brazil produces ethanol with an energy gain of up to 8:1, because of the favourable conditions in which the fuel is produced. Add to this the fact that Brazil has spent years perfecting suitable varieties of cane and even genetically engineering it to optimise yields.

Now I have no brief for the US corn belt, and I am opposed to the use of intensive agriculture that exhausts soils and produces unacceptable runoff as anyone else. But do these arguments carry across to the use of sugar cane in tropical countries?

Taking them in reverse order, transport is minimised when ethanol plants are built next to the sugar cane fields, as is always the case in tropical countries. Herbicides are not needed in cane fields - you don’t do any weeding for such a crop, and in fact any weeds that manage to grow are simply swept up as “biomass” to go the sugar/ethanol mill. Fertiliser inputs are minimised by recycling the waste from ethanol distillation (vinasse) after drying it. And the drying, as well as the entire operation of the mill, can be powered by a mini-power plant burning the cane stalks after extracting the juice.

So if Australia were to swing behind sugar cane for ethanol production in a big way, then the results would be almost entirely positive. Farmer co-ops would be formed to build the ethanol plants, and they would provide steady employment in rural areas. The supplies of ethanol would encourage independent retailers of fuel to challenge the near-total dominance of the oil majors over distribution of petrol and fuel oils.

The political situation in Australia is so toxic that debate is railroaded by an alleged cosy deal between John Howard and Manildra boss, John Honan, over blocking a tanker of ethanol from Brazil to Australia. But it’s time to move on from such pettiness to look at the bigger picture. An ethanol industry in Australia would dwarf Manildra.

Globally, there is everything to gain from creating a free and open global market for ethanol. It makes as much sense for motorists in the US and Europe to import their liquid fuel from progressive and democratic countries in the tropical parts of the world that are developing fast - such as Brazil or India or even Australia - as it does to import oil that props up Middle East regimes.

But the US imposes an import tariff of 54c per gallon on ethanol - imposed at the behest of the corn belt producers (and largely to the benefit of the big blenders such as Archer Daniels Midland (ADM). Australia too imposes a high tariff against imported ethanol, apparently linked to the Manildra incident. It is imperative that it be removed - and a free market for energy in Australia be introduced.

What about all the furphies put about by the motor industry in Australia regarding ethanol and engine damage. Suffice to say that almost everyone is driving Flex Fuel Vehicles now in Brazil, and that Detroit is promoting the idea heavily.

Biodiesel is another promising product that has far more future in the tropical countries than in temperate Europe or the US. India is experimenting with new sources such as Jatropha cursus (grown by the Japanese military during the war to produce aviation fuel) and the Brazilians are sowing soybean and other fast-growing vegetable oil sources on lands left degraded after cattle grazing.

Australia too could generate a very successful biofuels industry, based on vegetable oils. At the moment companies are building the business - such as the Australian Biodiesel Group - based on animal oils. These are fine, but cannot be scaled up very far. Heavy users of diesel in Australia - such as mining contractors like Leighton Holdings - are potentially extremely important customers for such biodiesel.

Beyond ethanol from sugar cane, and biodiesel, there is cellulosic ethanol produced from wood pulp and biowastes with the aid of new cocktails of digestive enzymes. This the experimental front of biofuels that has most promise. I agree with Adam Fenderson (New Matilda - log in required) that this is where Australia could reap huge advantages in developing fast-growing forest plantations for fuel use.

The usual case against biofuels is that proposals for their serious scaling up would destroy forests, create vast areas of arid land through overcropping and monoculture, and drive up food prices. But again these objections are Eurocentric and US-centric, and ignore the possibilities available in tropical countries - and in Australia.

There is a conventional wisdom based on developed country perspectives that biofuels cannot possibly pick up the full burden of transport fuel supplies. “All renewables suffer from low areal densities” is the opinion of Professor Hoffert and his colleagues, writing in the premier journal Science. Hoffert et al go on to comment: “… photosynthesis has too low a power density (~0.6 W/m2) for biofuels to contribute significantly to climate stabilization. PV and wind energy (~15 W/m2) need less land, but other materials can be limiting” (2002: 984).

These illustrious authors, having dismissed so cavalierly in a couple of lines the terrestrial efforts to make up for fossil fuel deficiencies with biofuels, solar and wind energy, then go on to devote paragraphs to an untried and speculative description of a space-based solar array as part of a star wars initiative.

The reality is rather different, especially for developing countries where sunshine and desolate landscapes are not in short supply. In India for example there are now several major investment programs underway in ethanol and biodiesel production, utilising vast areas of degraded or under-utilised land. These projects can also capture latecomer advantages through utilising the latest in biorefinery technology - as recognised in a more recent article in Science.

Let’s be realistic about the land. Brazil produces its current output of just over 14,000 ML of ethanol from 2.66 million hectares - or 26,600 square kilometers. Australia could match that with just a strip of land 50 km deep and 500 km long. We have the land, either in Queensland’s interior or in the northwest, where regular monsoon rains water a 50km coastal belt and are simply washed back to the sea by rivers such as the Daly.

Still, the key to the transition is the role of government in rolling back the subsidies enjoyed by fossil fuels and in creating demand - as well as forcing the shift in infrastructure needed by mandating supplies of ethanol-petrol blends in service stations around the country. This is the part that is conspicuously lacking in Australia. But it can’t be allowed to continue, because the oil companies and the automotive companies are singing a very different tune in countries like Brazil.

The issue is not entirely dead. If you only read the mainstream press, you’d be forgiven for remaining ignorant of these matters in Australia. Who is aware that there is a Senate inquiry currently underway into “Australia's future oil supply and alternative transport fuels”? There is - and you should be adding your voice to the debate.