THE BIOFUELS CHOICES IN FRANCE AND KENYA

Reports from Kenya and France highlight continued conflict over biofuels. Nations are left with a pair of bad choices: Get in on the emerging AGROfuel economy and accept its extensive downside or let the parade pass by in the hope that the promise of next-generation biofuels is worth the wait – and the lost revenues.

Kenya: Environmentalists say a planned sugarcane plantation in Kenya’s River Tana Delta would destroy precious, irreplaceable natural habitat. Advocates say the harm is exaggerated and Kenya needs jobs and energy.

Environmentalists offer a report from the British Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) and Nature Kenya showing the economic benefits are exaggerated because estimates of the project's cost did not include costs of water use, land loss, community livelihood losses and tourism losses.

The UK’s Oxfam: “The current biofuel policies of rich countries are neither a solution to the climate crisis nor the oil crisis, and instead are contributing to a third: the food crisis. In poor countries, biofuels may offer some genuine development opportunities, but the potential economic, social, and environmental costs are severe, and decision makers should proceed with caution.”

France: The government is pushing the development of biodiesel derived from food crops such as rapeseed and soybeans.

Xavier Montagne, deputy scientific director, French Petroleum Institute: “The French government thinks it's a good alternative to conventional fuel…” (Note that Mr. Montagne is with the petroleum industry.)

Jean-Charles DesChamps, French farmer: "It's a good business…We've increased our output for several years now.”

Montague and DesChamps seem to be among those who do not believe (or care?) the AGROfuel business is driving food prices up and making world hunger a bigger problem. It may have something to do with the fact that the farming and petroleum sectors profit from AGROfuels.

Is it right to blame AGROfuels for higher food prices and more widespread hunger? Statistically, the answer is yes and no. The skyrocketing price of oil and the plunging value of the dollar are more significant factors. Government subsidies and incentive programs for biofuels development, however, are the only factors driving rising food prices and concomitantly rising hunger that can be controlled.

Central to the French government’s push for biodiesel is the EU goal of getting 10% of transport fuels from biofuels.

Jerome Frignet, biodiesel campaign director, Greenpeace France: ”You can't consider that energy could come in first, instead of feeding people…”

Environmentalists want the government to set its sights on using only “sustainable” biofuels, that is, biofuels that do not compromise food supplies and drive prices up.

The hope is that next-generation biofuels made from nonfood crops, though still not commercially viable, will eventually resolve the conflict.

It is unlikely Kenya can or will wait that long. On the other hand, by the time the sugarcane crop is ready to harvet, the price of its value as food could be higher than of its fuel value.

Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General, United Nations: "The cost of inaction would be unacceptably high. Over 100 million people could slide into hunger…We must act immediately to boost agricultural production this year…"

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Kenya sued over biofuels project
18 July 2008 (BBC News)
and
France Looks to Biofuel to Solve Enmergy Woes
Greg Palkot, July 17, 2008 (Fox News)

WHO
Nature Kenya (Enoch Kanyanya, conservation manager) Environmental and community groups (Wangari Maathai, Kenyan Nobel Laureate/environmentalist)

WHAT
- A Kenyan judge ordered work stopped on a controversial sugarcane plantation that would use the cane to produce sugar ethanol and process the bagasse biomass into biogas to generate electricity.
- The French government is promoting the production of crop-based biofuels but French environmentalists object, calling for sustainability and the development of next-generation biofuels from nonfood crops.

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WHEN
- The project was approved in June 2008 by Kenyan authorities but stopped the week of July 18.
- The next-generation biofuels on which French environmentalists place their hopes for sustainability are still not practical for large-scale, economic production and may not be for the foreseeable future.
- World food demand is expected 50% by 2030.

WHERE
- The project would be on a 20,000 hectare site in the River Tana Delta, 190 km (120 miles) north of the port city of Mombasa.
- The International Energy Agency (IEA), based in Paris, has a stronger influence on French energy policy than on other of the 27 nations it advises.

WHY
- The cost of the project is estimated at $369 million.
- The region to be turned into a sugarcane plantation is home to 350 species of birds, including the globally threatened Basra reed warbler and Tana River cisticola, endangered primate species and lions, hippos, elephants, rare sharks and rare reptiles including the Tana writhing skink.
- The extensive irrigation required to grow sugarcane would drain delta region wetlands, utterly altering the ecology of the habitat.
- The EU goal of getting 10% of its transportation fuels from biofuels is driving development of non-sustainable products. It is also the basis of EU nation’s strategy of blending biodiesel with petroleum-based diesel.

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QUOTES
- Wangari Maathai, Kenyan Nobel Laureate/environmentalist: "We cannot just start messing around with the wetland because we need biofuel and sugar,"
- Enoch Kanyanya, conservation manager, Nature Kenya: "We want the project stopped because it's likely to make the region an ecological disaster…"
- Ralph Sims, Renewable Energy Unit, IEA: “The message from Europe is, find a biofuel that works and do it right…”