Agriculture as provider of both food and fuel

We have also tried to estimate the volume of byproducts from food production and it is, not completely unexpectedly, nearly as much as primary food production itself. From the study I think that it can be seen quite clearly that we should not make biofuel from food. Further, we show that there is a great potential for biogas production from agricultural byproducts and those byproducts already exist. There must be a global effort to institute this and, purely theoretically, we can replace 25 per cent of today’s transport fuel with biogas.

In contrast, there is nothing that indicates that it was ethanol production that caused the food price rises. Rather, it was the price of oil that drove up the price of food. Ethanol from maize in the USA can have had local significance, but ethanol from sugar cane is, instead, a byproduct of the production of sugar.

Detailed studies in the USA show that one calorie of prepared food on the table requires, commercially, the equivalent of 7.4 calories to put it there. A global average is five calories per calorie of food on the table. Most of this is energy from fossil fuels. If we take our food requirement of 12 million barrels of oil per day and multiply it by a factor of five we get 60 million barrels of oil equivalents per day which is 30 per cent of all fossil fuel use. Those that call for zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 must first explain how an estimated 9 billion people will be fed.

You who blog and become instant experts and dismiss what we researchers say without regard to our research results should understand that a research report takes time to write. Finally, I would like to thank above all others Kersti and Karin. I am enormously proud that we have such fantastic students at Uppsala University.

Additional note: This is a translation of a question and its answer following the online article:

Per-Olov asked: Can it be correct that ethanol is a byproduct when they produce sugar from sugarcane? Is it not the sugar solution that is converted to ethanol?

Aleklett replied: I have been on a study trip to Brazil and I visited one of the plantations that produces ethanol. … After they crush the sugarcane they place the liquid in a bath where sugar crystals form. Approximately half of the sugar in the solution crystallizes. The remainder is directed to an installation where they ferment the sugar to alcohol. I asked how many installations (plantations) produce sugar [crystals for food] and, except for a few, they all do. One only needs to compare the amounts of sugar and ethanol [produced by Brazil]. You can read about my visit to Brazil here and here.