SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry
(SUNY-ESF)
International Union of Biorefineries (IUB) ,The Biorefinery Institute
The Sustainable Biofuels Consensus
Sergio C. Trindade
strindade@alum.mit.edu
Syracuse, NY
6 October 2009
The Energy Menu
• Biomass, solar, other renewable
energies likely to grow
• Biofuels have a role to play in
stretching the life of the world’s
current energy supply
• Cannot be expected to replace the
totality of the liquid fossil fuels
supplies at any point in time
• Will however play a role in the
transition towards the long term
energy future
The Beginning of a New Era
%
100
80
70
We are here today
Biomass
90
Hydro
(firewood)
Modern
Nuclear
Biomass
Natural Gas
60
Solar
Oil
50
40
30
20
Coal
Other
10
0
1850
1900
Source: Nakícenovic, Grübler and MaConald, 1998
1950
2000
2050
2100
Sustainability of Biofuels:
Economic: costs below the opportunity cost in the
medium term, w/o subsidies
Environmental: improves local environment,
mitigates climate change, generates carbon
credits
Social: improves public health, does not compete
with food, creates jobs
The Sustainable Biofuels Consensus
Understanding the many drivers for sustainable trade,
consumption and production of biofuels, and the
comparative advantage of producing regions combined
with demand and technology from consuming
Regions – the BioPact
At Rockefeller Foundation Center Bellagio, Italy
24-28 March 2008
The SBC Declaration
Our Vision is of a landscape that:
• provides food, fodder, fiber, and energy
services
• offers opportunities for rural development
• diversifies energy supply
• protects biodiversity, sequesters carbon
and
• contributes to global peace
Produced responsibly,
• Increased global biofuels trade, transport
use and production can be costeffective, equitable and sustainable.
• And realizes the great potential for
domestic biofuels from agricultural
and forest biomass, and from urban
wastes, subject to adequate capacity
building, technology transfer and
access to finance.
• Trade in biofuels, surplus to local
requirements, opens new markets,
stimulates investment to improve lot
of many poor countries – the BioPact
• Vision responds to the threat of passing a
tipping point in climate system
dynamics
• Urgency and scale of the problem require
massive capital investment, more like
the energy than land use sectors
• Time line for action is decades, not
centuries, for shift from fossil carbon to
sustainable biomass.
• The SBC urges gov’ts, private sector, other
stakeholders to take concerted,
collaborative and coordinated action to
ensure sustainable trade, use and
production of biofuels, for biofuels to play
key role in
• transforming the energy sector, stabilizing
climate, promoting worldwide renaissance
of rural areas, all urgently needed.
Global Biomass Feedstock Potential
Contribution of biomass to global primary
and consumer energy supplies in 2007
world primary energy demand
470 EJ1
2
1. One ExaJoule equals 1018 Joules or approximately 164 million barrels (or 22.7 million
metric tons) of oil equivalent, about a week of current US oil consumption
2. In future some biofuels such as ethanol gels and dimethyl ether (DME) could be
produced as clean-burning, affordable and convenient substitutes for inefficient
traditional solid biomass combustion used in rural areas of the developing world
2007 WORLD FUEL ETHANOL
50 million m3
EU Asia etc.
4%
4%
NA
LAC
51%
EU
41%
Asia etc.
LAC
NA
(NA = US and Canada; LAC = Latin America and the Caribbean; EU = European Union)
Share of the Americas (NA + LAC) likely to decrease as other countries expand, but overall output is expected to increase
everywhere, especially in Africa .
Source: Berg, Christoph (2008). Personal Communication.
Food versus fuel?
• Recent agricultural commodity price increases
largely unrelated to biofuel production
• Increasing food and fodder demand,
speculation on international food markets
and incidental poor harvests due to
extreme weather events
• Also, high oil and fertilizers costs impacted on
the price of agricultural commodities
Food versus fuel?
• Low productivity in agriculture in many regions
resulted in unsustainable land - use, erosion
and loss of soils, deforestation and poverty
• Increased productivity over time as a result of
better farm management, new technologies,
improved varieties, energy related capital
investment and capacity building could
gradually increase the intensity of land use
• Thus, sufficient land becomes available to meet
the growing demand for food, fodder, fiber
and biofuel production
World Biodiesel Production, 3.5 billion liters, 2005
1.Germany 2.France
3.Italy
1
4.Austria
2
5.Denmark 6.United Kingdom
3
7.Czech Republic 8.Poland
9.Spain 10.Sweden
11.Other Europe 12.United
States 13.Other
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
Recommendations for implementing the SBC
• Integrate
and better coordinate policy
frameworks
• Assess benefits and impacts of
biofuels trade, use and production,
and monitor them
• Address negative indirect effects of
biofuels trade, use and production
• Reward positive impacts and
investments, including through
carbon management
Recommendations for implementing the SBC
• Use
informed stakeholders’ dialogues
to build consensus for new projects
• Increase investment in research, d&d
• Build capacity to enable producers to
manage carbon and water
• Make sure that trade and climate
change policies work together
• Promote a BioPact.
The sustainability of biofuels depends on
international trade
• Sustainability-certified biofuels trade would ensure that
they were produced sustainably
• The BioPact would contribute to the global
sustainability of biofuels by smoothing supplydemand gaps
• If corn-based ethanol becomes untenable economically,
socially and/or environmentally, unimpeded trade
of ethanol would relieve the price and availability
issues caused by fuel ethanol demand for corn
• If palm oil based biodiesel pressures food-related palm
oil prices, then unimpeded trade of biodiesel would
allow the movement of non-palm oil biodiesel into
the market, thus mitigating issues of price and
availability of palm oil
Conclusions
•International trade essential for the sustainability of
biofuels: economic, social and environmental
• To be long-run sustainable, biofuels must cost
below the opportunity cost of fuels they
replace
• Regions of the world that can produce biofuels
below their opportunity cost, could export
sustainability certified biofuels to regions that
cannot do so sustainably – the BioPact
• Thus, freer trade of biofuels would promote the
economic sustainability dimension of trade