Biofuels: why we don’t need them

In America, market distortion of this kind has resulted in scarcity and increase in cost of certain foods, particularly sugar and grains. This in turn has inflated the price of meat, bakery products, and other foodstuffs containing sugar and grain.

In Australia, this problem has so far been avoided by importing biofuels, particularly from Indonesia and Malaysia. This has resulted in destruction of rainforest in those countries and ever shrinking habitat for flora and fauna, including the endangered orang-utan. Cleared land is planted with crops such as oil palm, largely for production of biofuels. This results in rapid depletion of soil fertility and increased CO2 emissions due to destruction of rainforest - short term gain for a long term loss, which can be permanent.

There remains one possibility for production of biofuels which would avoid these problems. That is to have them produced by algae, if they can be genetically modified to sequester CO2 from the atmosphere and use it to produce a biofuel. However, it seems very unlikely that production by this means would be as cost-effective as electricity.

Unless biofuels are able to compete with electricity, there is no economic reason for their production for propulsion, which would merely delay consigning the internal combustion engine to the waste-pile of history. However, production of bio-oil may be important as a source material for the manufacture of fertilisers, plastics and other petro-chemical products.

Some people argue that electricity is predominantly generated from burning fossil fuels such as coal, gas, or oil, the main sources of CO2 emissions. An increase in demand for electricity to fuel cars and other vehicles would therefore add to those emissions. Biofuels would not. This contention is only true if the electricity used to recharge vehicle batteries is in fact generated from fossil fuels. At present, biofuels are not used for this purpose.

A growing amount of Australia’s electricity needs are beginning to be generated from renewable sources such as hydro, wind, solar and, lurking on the doorstep, the massive potential of geothermal energy. Government has mandated that 20 per cent of our electricity needs must come from renewables by 2020. That target may be exceeded well before 2020, allowing battery recharging without increasing CO2 emissions. Further, most recharging can be undertaken at night when much electricity production would otherwise be wasted.

Many other countries are in a similar situation to Australia. Some have higher renewable energy targets and a few, like France, generate nearly all their electricity needs without using fossil fuels.

Even though biofuels only emit CO2 that has been taken from the atmosphere by the plants from which they are made, they still produce emissions. Electricity produced from other renewable sources does not and, importantly, it is cheaper.

The only reason for opting to produce or use biofuels for propulsion would be some strange desire to cling to use of the internal combustion engine and the pollution associated with it. That price is too high. We do not need biofuels. Electricity is a far better option for vehicle propulsion being cheaper, widely available and much more efficient.