ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF BIODIESEL

The NSW Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA) and Newcastle council did a study on the emissions from premium diesel or B20 (20% biodiesel 80% fossil diesel) in 2004 (Adobe Acrobat required):

Newcastle City Council / RTA Biodiesel Trial Emissions Testing Program

CSIRO did a comprehensive study comparing the emissions from any fuel you may wish to run your vehicle on. Guess which fuel came out on top:

www.greenhouse.gov.au/transport/comparison/index.htm

A summary of reports on the macroeconomic and environmental effect of biodiesel as experienced in Europe (requires Adobe Acrobat):

Macroeconomic + Environmental Effects

 

A typical graph of the emissions from Rapeseed Methyl Ester (biodiesel) as opposed to fossil diesel:

 

 

Choose your feedstock wisely: beware palm oil
Biodiesel has been championed as a means of reducing our carbon dioxide emissions. However, like many emerging ‘green’ technologies, the environmental impacts or benefits depend largely on how it is produced; in particular, where the feedstock comes from.

Biodiesel made from used cooking oil has the least emissions, as you are using what would otherwise be a waste product. Making biodiesel from a purpose grown crop causes some emissions; from the tractor that seeded and harvested the crop, the truck that carted it, processing, fertilizers and pesticides, etc. All considered though, it still stacks up very well compared to fossil fuels.

But what if a rain forest has to be cleared to make room for the oil crop? Not only do we loose the biodiversity, but we loose the CO2 locked up in the soil and the trees. When the forest is burned in the process of clearing, even greater amounts of CO2 are released into the atmosphere compared to using fossil diesel.

Unfortunately, the oil palm grows very well where tropical rainforest used to. Palm oil yields are also the best of any oil crop. For many years, the Indonesia and Malaysian territories of Sumatra and Borneo have been clear fell logged and burned to make room for plam oil to be used in cooking and cosmetics. New demand for biofuels (spurred by mandates in over 30 countries) has greatly increased the demand for palm oil, accelerating the rate of rainforest destruction in Sumatra and Borneo. Similarly, in Brazil, demand for land on which to grow soy is accelerating the rate of clear felling in the Amazon and Cerrado. Biodiesel is only a sustainable fuel if the feedstock is produced sustainably. The UN has named rainforest clearing to produce biodiesel as responsible for 4/5 of the emissions in Indonesia – the 3rd largest climate culprit.

MODIS data

Smoke from agricultural and forest fires burning on Sumatra (left) and Borneo (right) in late September and early October 2006 blanketed a wide region with smoke that interrupted air and highway travel and pushed air quality to unhealthy levels. This image from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite on October 1, 2006, shows places where MODIS detected actively burning fires marked in red. Smoke spreads in a gray-white pall to the north. NASA image created by Jesse Allen, Earth Observatory, using data provided courtesy of the MODIS Rapid Response team.

Buy locally, buy organic
While biodiesel has many benefits over fossil diesel, it will never be able to replace fossil litre for litre, as there is simply not enough arable land on earth to meet our current levels of consumption. We must also avoid fuel crops competing with food crops. The reality is that in order to mitigate global warming and respond to peak oil, we will need to decrease our consumption of all fuels.

An intriguing example of how this can be achieved comes from the way in which Cuba responded to its own peak oil crisis in the 1990s. The US trade embargo and collapse of the Soviet Union cut Cuba’s oil imports by half. The small island then had to restructure its agriculture and transport systems, transitioning from a highly mechanized, industrial agricultural system to one using permaculture farming methods and local, urban gardens.

For more information about sustainable biodiesel, see www.biodieselkeepitgreen.org