Biofuels - a solution that will make the problem worse

And what of the "green" credentials of biofuels? One need look no further than Indonesia and Malaysia to see that this claim is a deceitful sham. Malaysia has already destroyed most of its virgin rainforests to become the world’s largest producer of palm oil, and Indonesia, not to be outdone, is expected to have obliterated its own rainforests within a decade or so. In our rush for rainforest-sourced biodiesel, we can say goodbye to the orangutan and hundreds if not thousands of other species. We can also say goodbye to the fight against global warming and our own collective futures.

Absolutely central to the promotion of agro-fuels is the idea that they are "carbon-neutral" and, more strongly, that they represent a major cut in CO2 emissions as compared to fossil fuel burning. But this claim ignores the "full lifecycle" of agro-fuels; in the case of palm oil grown in Indonesia and Malaysia, the carbon emitted through deforestation, forest fires, peat drainage, cultivation and soil carbon losses mean that every ton of palm oil "generates 33 tons of CO2 emissions - 10 times more than petroleum". The growing of any agro-fuel that involves deforestation – and this will include the massive expansion of the Brazilian sugarcane fields because it will push displaced groups into the Amazon - will result in much greater CO2 emissions than fossil fuel burning. According to Doug Parr, Chief British scientist at Greenpeace, sourcing even 5 per cent of agro-fuels from existing ancient forests will destroy any carbon gain from all other agro-fuel sources combined. Even worse, the loss of rainforests deprives the earth of one of its key cooling mechanisms, the albedo effect produced by cloud-seeing bacteria that proliferate in these regions. Global temperatures will almost certainly reach the 2 degree tipping point and runaway, irreversible warming will become inevitable.

To complete this nightmare scenario we might add that the crops - corn especially - require vast amounts of fertilizer and pesticide, as well as heavy inputs of water. There are predictions of increasing water stress in the United States and elsewhere if tens of millions of hectares are devoted to growing agro-fuels. Production on this scale will lead to massive soil erosion and pollute groundwater sources and rivers. Australia is already facing a major water crisis with the collapse of the Murray-Darling basin. Do we really want to add salt on this open wound in order to feed the profits of big business and venture capitalists?

The irony is that biomass-derived fuels have a very low power and energy density as compared to fossil fuels - for example 1.5 units of ethanol is needed to replace 1 unit of fossil fuels - and that these factors "provide permanent physical limits to the extent to which biofuels can replace fossil fuels". Studies examining the potential energy yield from agro-fuels assume a land availability of 0.7 Giga hectares by 2050 (out of a global total land surface of 13.4 Gha; currently 0.01 Gha is devoted to biofuel production). The OECD report says that this is "far too optimistic"; competition among arable land for food and bioenergy is unavoidable; and growing agro-fuel crops on "degraded" land is severely limited by water shortages. Including the much-heralded second generation technologies, the OECD estimates that theoretically 23 per cent of liquid fuel demand in transport could be met from these fuels by 2050; but that such potential was very unlikely to be realized.

A more realistic estimate is 13 per cent of liquid fuels by 2050, which would only represent at best a net reduction of 3 per cent of energy-related CO2 emissions; and even that is optimistic because it assumes continued government targets and falls in production prices of biofuels to below the levels of fossil fuels.

From every perspective other than the purely short-term commercial, conventional agro-fuels make little sense. The fundamental problem is that our political leaders do not want to talk about the truly sustainable alternative, which has to do with localizing our lives and production, and reducing our patterns of consumption. Second-generation fuels produced through biomass may well have a part to play in this possible future, but we need time to allow the science to develop further and for the public to consider the bigger picture.

The leaders of the major parties talk as though the cornucopian myth of endless economic growth were true, and as if there were no natural or resource limits to the extent to which we can degrade, pollute and deplete the environment and our natural resource base. Like true believers in a fundamentalist sect, they refuse to contemplate a deep questioning of the primacy universally attributed to "economic prosperity" and the corporate welfare state that goes with it. Contrary to this rose-tinted fantasy, all of us might soon be about to discover, to our great cost, that we can no longer have our cake and eat it.