FUTURE BIODIESEL/ETHANOL: GLOOM

Some of the many reasons we aren't going to grow our way out of this:

Alternative-energy boom roils Asian environments
Patrick Barta and Jane Spencer, December 05, 2006 (The Wall Street Journal via The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
- Investors are pouring billions of dollars into "renewable" energy sources such as ethanol, biodiesel and solar power that promise to reduce the world's reliance on petroleum. But exploiting these alternatives may produce unintended environmental and economic consequences -- fallout that could offset many of the expected benefits.

- Here on the island of Borneo, a thick haze often encloses this city of 500,000 people. The cause: forest fires that have blazed across the island, some of which were set to clear land to produce palm oil -- a key ingredient in biodiesel, a clean-burning diesel fuel alternative…
- Seasonal rains have helped quell the fires over the past few weeks. Even so, the miasma of smoke from Borneo and the island of Sumatra -- an annual phenomenon that blankets large parts of Southeast Asia in smog, including Singapore and Kuala Lumpur -- underscores a troubling dark side of the world's alternative-energy boom. Among other problems, the fires set to clear forest land spew millions of tons of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, experts say. In doing so, they exacerbate the very global-warming concerns biofuels are meant to alleviate…
- In Indonesia and Malaysia, forests are being slashed for new energy-yielding crops or other unconventional fuels. In India, environmental activists say, water tables are dropping as farmers try to boost production of ethanol-yielding sugar…
- Some experts are also concerned that crops for biofuels will compete with other farmland, possibly driving up global costs of basic food production. It isn't clear how serious these problems will become -- or whether they eventually will be resolved…
- The alternative energy field "is almost like the Internet in terms of the pace of how fast all this is changing," and new technologies could help resolve some concerns over collateral damage, says Chris Flavin, president of Worldwatch Institute…

- [Cornell University professor of environmental policy David Pimentel] has long held doubts about [corn ethanol]'s value. He argues that expanding corn production for biofuels would deplete water resources and pollute soils with added fertilizer and chemicals. It would also require huge volumes of traditional energy for farming equipment and ethanol-conversion facilities -- a toll that could nullify gains from the less-polluting fuel produced…Other studies, including one by researchers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, have reached more optimistic conclusions and have criticized Mr. Pimentel's methodology…
- Last year, investors globally poured a record $49 billion into energies such as solar power, ethanol and biodiesel…a 60 percent increase from the previous year.
But commercializing many alternative fuels relies on political support in the form of government subsidies or tax incentives…
- In October, a European Parliament committee recommended that the European Union ban all biofuel made from palm oil, citing fears that the crop encourages deforestation in tropical countries. In Indonesia, activists helped block an $8 billion Chinese-backed project that would have created one of the world's largest palm-oil plantations.
- And last month, one of Britain's largest power companies, RWE npower, a subsidiary of the German power giant RWE AG, said it would abandon a project that was to use several hundred thousand tons of palm oil a year to generate power. An environmental group, Friends of the Earth, had complained that the project would contribute to unsustainable global demand for palm oil, contributing to rain-forest destruction in Southeast Asia….
- [Palm] oil is squeezed from bunches of red fruit that grow on oil palms, primarily in Malaysia and Indonesia, where climactic conditions are ideal for large plantations…processed to make fuel…mixed with conventional diesel to form a hybrid energy source -- for instance, 80 percent regular diesel and 20 percent biofuel…
- Biodiesel offers lots of upsides. Renewable crops like palm oil reduce the need for fossil fuels such as petroleum…It also burns more cleanly…
- As oil prices have surged, a number of companies, including Chevron Corp., have announced plans to build or invest in biodiesel plants…creating demand for even more plantations…
- Borneo -- which is divided between Indonesia and Malaysia -- is considered by environmentalists to be one of the last great tropical wildernesses. It is home to rare and unusual species, including the wild orangutan, the clouded leopard and the Sumatran rhinoceros.

- It is also home to some of the world's last headhunters. The indigenous Dayaks resurrected the grisly practice as recently as the late 1990s in interethnic clashes. Some Dayaks still live in villages that can only be reached by river and sleep in wooden "longhouse" buildings on stilts…
- Today, only a little more than half of Borneo's once-ubiquitous rain-forest cover remains…Now, the palm-oil boom threatens what is left…
- The arrival of new palm-oil plantations has meant jobs and opportunities for many Dayak families, and some have even taken ownership stakes in the operations.
As residents are discovering, though, the spreading plantations have deleterious effects. They can alter water-catchment areas, destroy animal habitats and contribute to the months-long bouts of haze that spreads hundreds of kilometers across Southeast Asia.
- As fires burn deep into the dry peat soil beneath Indonesia's forests, centuries of carbon trapped in the biomass are released into the atmosphere…Indonesia is the world's third-biggest carbon emitter behind the U.S. and China, when emissions from fires and other factors are considered…

- One new oil-palm plantation, four hours by dirt road from Pontianak, offers a glimpse of the fallout from the flames…The plantation stretches across some 1,000 hectares and features a series of blackened and largely bare hills. Charred stumps stick up from the soil and blistered tree trunks litter the ground. In the distance, a wall of misty jungle marks the border of the property…smoke and flames from fires at the site destroyed fruit and rubber trees that [villagers nearby] relied on. They also made many people in the area sick…
- Untad Dharmawan, director of environmental impact assessment for West Kalimantan, says Indonesian authorities are investigating nine palm-oil companies for illegal burning…But they are hamstrung by tight budgets and the enormous logistical difficulties of policing such a vast area with few roads…
- Back in Borneo, Tony Hartono, head of a local plantation association in West Kalimantan, says he still believes palm-oil-derived biodiesel will play a big role in solving the world's energy problems. After all, "it's a renewable energy," he says. "It's our future."