CULTURE DE POURGHERE/JATROPHA AU MALI: PRODUCTION DE BIOCARBURANT AU DETRIMENT DE LA PRODUCTION VIVRIERE

Les pauvres ont faim ? Qu’ils mangent du gasoil !




par Pauline Imbach

source: http://www.cadtm.org//spip.php?article3966/

24 décembre 2008

Fin juin 2008, quelques mois seulement après les émeutes de la faim, une Agence nationale de développement des « biocarburants » est créée au Mali. Cette agence a pour mission la mise en oeuvre de la stratégie du pays dans le développement des agrocarburants pour la période 2008-2023. A terme, l’agence vise le remplacement de 20% du gasoil et du DDO |1| par l’huile de pourghère.

La pourghère ou Jatropha curcas ou Bagani « poison » en bambara est une espèce de plante à fleurs de la famille des Euphorbiaceae. Elle est originaire du Brésil. Les paysans l’utilisent en haies vives pour protéger leurs cultures des vents et des animaux qui s’en éloignent à cause de sa toxicité et de son odeur nauséabonde. Plantée serrée autour des terrains cultivés, elle fournit de l’humus et retient l’humidité. Les graines sont utilisées comme purgatif en médecine traditionnelle et l’huile sert à fabriquer du savon. La pourghère est facile à cultiver, elle pousse en terre aride et ne requiert ni labourage, ni ensemencement. De plus, elle possède des qualités insecticides et fongicides.

L’idée d’en faire un carburant n’est pas nouvelle. Déjà pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, en 1942, les colons français avaient expérimenté ce carburant pour prévenir une éventuelle pénurie de pétrole. Les tests furent peu probants et le projet abandonné. Au début des années 1990, les expériences reprennent et diverses études ont confirmé la faisabilité technico-économique de la transformation de la pourghère. Le Mali est un précurseur dans la production d’énergie à base de pourghère. Cette plante peut produire jusqu’à 2000 litres de diester |2| par hectare ce qui est largement supérieur au colza. Le coût de production du litre d’huile de pourghère est estimé entre 0,25 euros et 0,38 euros (170 Fcfa et 250 Fcfa) contre 0,72 euros (475 Fcfa), soit le double, pour le gasoil.

L’agrocarburant malien : projet à vocation socio-économique ou nouveau poison néocolonial au goût de françafrique ?

Dans un communiqué du conseil des ministres du mercredi 25 juin 2008 il est mentionné que « La stratégie nationale pour le développement des biocarburants vise à accroître la production locale d’énergie par le développement des biocarburants en vue de fournir à moindre coût de l’énergie pour satisfaire les besoins socio-économiques du pays. Dans ce cadre, il est prévu l’accroissement de la production végétale de base des biocarburants, l’érection d’infrastructures artisanales et industrielles de production, de transformation et de distribution de biocarburants ». |3|

Quelques mois plus tôt, en septembre 2007, l’ancien ambassadeur français auprès de la FAO Charles Million, en visite à Bamako, défendait l’objectif de faire du Mali, en dix ans, le producteur de biodiesel le plus important du continent. Il escompte ainsi « prouver qu’on peut conjuguer développement et rentabilité économique ». Dans son sillage, deux représentants du savoir-faire français en matière d’oléagineux et de biomasse/énergies renouvelables : Jean-Claude Sabin, président et fondateur de Proléa (Sofiprotéol, dépositaire de la marque biodiester) et Francis Simoncini, président de Bio Maïa (filiale de Maïa Sonnier). Le trio a signé le 15 septembre 2007 avec l’État du Mali une convention-cadre de quelque 120 millions d’euros sur un ambitieux projet de production d’agro-carburants, la première d’une série qui couvrira plusieurs pays africains, mais aussi d’Asie et d’Amérique latine.

Dans un article de « Marchés tropicaux », on peut lire « Lorsque j’ai contacté Total la première fois au sujet de ce projet agro-carburants, ils m’ont presque ri au nez. Aujourd’hui, ils disent ‘’ne partez pas sans nous‘’, s’amuse un des protagonistes d’AgroED (société française Agro Energie Développement). Et Total affiche la couleur (verte) : le groupe s’affirme comme le leader européen des biocarburants » |4|.

Pendant que les milieux d’affaires s’amusent entre eux à concocter de nouveaux moyens cyniques d’engendrer des profits, les paysans sont dépossédés de leurs terres, les populations s’appauvrissent et crient famine.

Cultures alimentaires contre cultures à vocation énergétique.

La satisfaction des besoins socio-économiques doit être au cœur des priorités d’un gouvernement. Mais, contrairement à ce qu’affirme le communiqué du conseil des ministres, la création à grande échelle d’agrocarburant ne va pas entraîner une amélioration de la qualité de vie des populations et la satisfaction des besoins socio-économiques. Le premier de ces besoins est de se nourrir. La pourghère ne se mange pas, soit. On ne transforme donc pas une denrée alimentaire en carburant mais elle pousse dans la terre comme toutes les plantes (nourricières). Cette plante, capable de produire plus que le colza va être mise en concurrence avec la plantation de produits alimentaires, à coup de lobby, de subventions et d’investissements colossaux. Si l’huile de pourghère est rentable, les agro-industriels comme Proléa, Bio Maïa ou Total ne vont pas se contenter de quelques kilomètres de haies vives, mais vont y consacrer des espaces actuellement réservés à la production de mil, de blé, de haricots ou autres terres utiles aux besoins quotidiens des populations. Ainsi, à Boni, au nord du Burkina Faso, les villageois ont déjà « offert » un terrain boisé de 60 à 70 hectares, sans contrepartie, aux promoteurs d’un projet d’implantation de pourghère. Les responsables de ce projet ont déjà prévu d’abattre tous les arbres du terrain, privant ainsi les femmes de bois de chauffe, l’énergie du pauvre, au profit de l’huile de pourghère, pour alimenter les 4x4 des riches.

Les cultures alimentaires risquent d’être remplacées par des cultures à vocation énergétique, responsables, pour partie, de l’augmentation des prix des matières premières agricoles et donc des famines qui sévissent dans de nombreux pays africains |5| . La valeur monétaire des graines de pourghère est de 55 francs CFA par kg. Pour les sous-produits, leur valeur monétaire est estimée à 40% de la valeur des graines. Dans la commune de Garalo au Mali, une étude compare les bénéfices à l’hectare de la pourghère avec les bénéfices à l’hectare d’autres cultures, et montre que la production de pourghère est systématiquement plus rentable que le maïs et le sorgho, et dans certains cas, que l’arachide et le coton |6| . Au-delà des enjeux économiques pour les agro-industriels, si pour un paysan il y a plus de débouchés économiques à vendre de la pourghère à un fabricant d’agrocarburant plutôt que du maïs ou du sorgho au marché de son village, que va-t-il cultiver ? Et ce n’est pas aux paysans qu’il faut jeter la pierre, mais bien à cette logique néolibérale du profit qui, à grand renfort médiatique, promeut insidieusement en pleine période de crise alimentaire la mise à disposition des terres pour fabriquer des agro carburants !

Même si des micro-projets locaux ont montré que le bio éthanol permettait d’accéder à l’électricité ou à la mécanisation, à partir du moment où les grands groupes s’emparent de la question pour produire de manière intensive, le pire est à craindre.

Ainsi, le Sénégal, le Burkina Faso et la Côte d’Ivoire envisagent une augmentation conséquente des biocarburants à base de pourghère, grâce à des investisseurs étrangers qui ont lancé sur des dizaines de milliers d’hectares la culture de la jatropha. La Jatroci, première unité agricole de jatropha de Côte d’Ivoire, a déjà planté 5.000 ha de jatropha dans les régions de Toumodi, Taabo et Dimbokro (centre de la Côte d’Ivoire), dont 100 ha servent de "banques semencières". Les "banques semencières" visent à fournir en plants les 10.000 ha de plantations qui doivent être réalisées d’ici fin 2008 pour alimenter une unité de transformation d’huile encore en projet. Interrogé par le magazine 7 sur 7 M. Anet, créateur de Jatroci confie qu’il est "en discussions pour l’ ’acquisition’ de 100.000 hectares dans la région".

La solution de la crise alimentaire n’est pas de cultiver pour nourrir des …voitures.

Depuis 50 ans, la Banque mondiale impose, aux pays en voie de développement, des politiques agricoles dévastatrices. La logique est simple et s’organise autour de trois mots d’ordre : « culture de rente », « exportation » et « remboursement de la dette et de ses intérêts ». Cette équation traduite sur le terrain donne : plus de cacao, plus de coton, plus de café et moins de mil, de haricots ou de blé ; plus d’exportations et plus d’importations pour moins de souveraineté et d’indépendance. Les bureaucrates de la Banque mondiale, ne se sont pas souciés, en mettant en place ces « plans de destruction structurelle » des conséquences inévitables pour les populations : la famine.

Alors que les responsabilités de cette crise alimentaire ont été mainte fois prouvées, on veut nous faire croire que c’est en produisant des agrocarburants que l’Afrique va « enfin » se développer. Non ! C’est toujours la même logique morbide de profit et de domination qui se met en place : à l’heure où le pétrole devient rare, il est indispensable de trouver une alternative et peu importe que celle-ci occupe des surfaces agricoles potentielles dans des lieux où on manque de nourriture, pourvu que les bénéfices soient juteux.

La pourghère va constituer une nouvelle culture de rente dont le gros des bénéfices va être accaparé par le secteur privé et le reste va servir à rembourser une dette illégitime et odieuse, dette qui depuis 1960, maintient les pays « indépendants » dépendants.

Plus de 860 millions de personnes souffrent chroniquement de la faim, les trois-quarts de ces personnes sont des paysannes et des paysans sensés « vivre de l’agriculture ».

La mise en place d’agrocarburants à base de pourghère est contraire au principe de souveraineté alimentaire, seule solution viable pour les paysans et les populations. La souveraineté alimentaire est le droit des peuples à définir leurs propres politiques en matière d’alimentation et d’agriculture, à protéger et à réglementer la production et le commerce agricoles intérieurs afin de réaliser leurs objectifs de développement durable, à déterminer dans quelle mesure ils veulent être autonomes et à limiter le dumping des produits sur leurs marchés. Pour sortir de cette crise, il faut revenir à une agriculture paysanne dont l’objectif est de nourrir les hommes … pas les voitures !

Notes

|1| Distilled Diesel Oil, combustible proche du gasoil

|2| Le terme Diester est formé par la contraction de diesel et ester, il est devenu commun pour désigner en France, les esters méthyliques d’huiles végétales (EMHV), le biodiesel en Europe et en Amérique du Nord.

|3| République du Mali, Communique du conseil des ministres, 25 juin 2008, page 6. http://www.sgg.gov.ml/Ccm/ccm25juin08.pdf

|4| http://www.marches-tropicaux.com/Article.asp ?art_id=5274

|5| Lire : Ce qui devait arriver arriva … de Rock Nianga. http://www.cadtm.org/spip.php ?article3377

|6| Romain Latapie, La culture du pourghère : une activité génératrice de revenus qui permet de faire face aux enjeux énergétiques du mali. Le cas du projet Garalo Bagani Yelen, mémoire de fin d’étude, Faculté des sciences économiques, Université de Rennes 1, octobre 2007, page 69.

JATROPHA BIOFUEL FAILS IN INDIA

FAIL! – India’s Hyped Jatropha Biodiesel Program Does Not Deliver.

By Prashanth Vishwanathan/ Reuters

Source: http://yehhailife.wordpress.com/2009/05/15/fail-indias-hyped-jatropha-biodiesel-program-does-not-deliver/

May 15, 2009

In 2005, the seed of the Jatropha Curcas tree, the miracle biofuel plant native to Central America, was supposed to be the panacea for India’s energy needs. Fast forward four years and the results are in – Fail!

Less than half of the 290 million Jatropha saplings on 3.9 million acres have survived. $332 million dollars have been invested. Reports of cattle poisoned from eating the leaves, and impact on farmers forced to replace food crop with Jatropha crops is still being ‘assessed.’

Prof R. R. Shah told the National, ““There is no yield,” he says. “The literature said that with dry land, after four years’ growth, you can get a yield of 1kg per plant. For us, it is hardly 200g per plant.” The other discovery being that Jatropha needs fertilizer, water and good management, just like any other biofuel plant. The result is it is three times more expensive than crude oil.

These were the promises – it would grow on ‘wastelands’, was drought resistant so didn’t need too much water, and wouldn’t need pesticides or fertilizers like food crops. It would become a reliable source of income for India’s poor rural farmers, providing energy self-sufficiency, while reducing fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions The effort was cheerled by none other than Dr. Abdul Kalam, India’s former President who claimed in 2006 that over 30 million hectares of Indian wasteland would be suitable for Jatropha growth.

Many are questioning the logic of such widescale implementation without better studies. As the specter of more vehicles and energy consumption looms over India and the world, an alternative fuel solution must be found. Its left to be seen whether the Pongamia Tree, native to India, will deliver better results.

THE FUTURE OF FOOD ( Video)

I highly recommend viewing the following documentary: The Future of Food by Deborah Koons Garcia. It provides an excellent overview of the issues and dangers surrounding Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) and their impact on our health, on the environment, etc. and on the very future of our existence...

Please click on the title ( link) above to view the entire video on google video and share it with as many people as you can. Thank you!

GERMAN COURT RULES AGAINST MONSANTO'S GM MAIZE

UPDATE 1-German court rejects Monsanto plea to end GMO maize ban

source: http://uk.reuters.com/article/governmentFilingsNews/idUKL558166220090505?sp=true

HAMBURG, May 5 (Reuters) - A German court on Tuesday rejected an urgent application from U.S. biotech company Monsanto to end Germany's ban on cultivation of Monsanto maize containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

Monsanto, the world's largest seed company, had requested an urgent decision to lift the ban imposed on April 14 by German Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner stopping cultivation and commercial sale of Monanto's MON 810 GMO maize which prevented it being sown for this year's harvest.

The court in Braunschweig in north Germany rejected an application for an emergency ruling to overturn Aigner's decision so as to allow sowings for the 2009 crop.

Monsanto now has the option of taking normal legal action against the decision, the court said. But there was no indication of when a decision on such action could be made.

A statement from the court said Germany's law on GMOs laid down that a ban on a new plant variety did not need to be justified by proven scientific research which showed without doubt the crop to be dangerous.

It was enough when research showed there were indications that the crop could be dangerous, the court said.

The court ruled that German authorities had not made an arbitrary or biased decision in imposing the ban.

Monsanto would consider further legal action against the ban, said the CEO of its German unit Ursula Luettmer-Ouazane. The court had damaged the freedom of farmers to use new technology, she said in a statement.

The European Union had already approved the maize type as safe and studies quoted by the German government in making its ban had already been previously examined by the EU, she said.

MON 810 GMO maize is resistant to the corn borer, a moth whose caterpillars damage maize plantings, reducing yields.

The court statement added: "There is no proven scientific evidence that the genetic maize could lead to increased danger to the environment."

"But new studies could indicate that the poisonous substance (generated by genetic mutation) could not only have an impact on the pests which it is aimed at combating, but also on other insects."

On April 27, Aigner allowed open air test cultivation of a potato containing GMOs developed by German chemicals group BASF, saying trials presented no threat to public health or the environment.

(Reporting by Michael Hogan; Editing by Keiron Henderson)

BIOFUELS: THE NEW SCRAMBLE FOR LAND IN AFRICA AND AROUND THE WORLD

European biofuels firms scramble for 'idle' lands in poor countries

LEIGH PHILLIPS

source: http://euobserver.com/885/28113

13.05.2009

EUOBSERVER/BRUSSELS - Massive tracts of land in Africa, Russia and Ukraine are being bought up or leased by richer countries to ensure access to food and for production of biofuels - a development that could result in unrest as locals begin to lose access over their territory.

An area roughly the same size as the amount of farmland in Germany is in play and at a cost of tens of billions of euros.

China has secured 2.8 million hectares in the Democratic Republic of Congo for oil palm.

This phenomenon, a product of the twin food and fuel crises of last year, is threatening local communities whose traditional use of such lands is being undermined by the food and energy security needs of others.

This all comes from a warning issued on Monday (11 May) by the US-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), an agricultural research centre funded by an alliance of 64 governments around the world.

A year after the global food crisis that saw food riots and protests spread throughout the developing world - and even to some rich countries - a number of nations have learnt their lesson.

These countries - largely emerging nations such as China, India and the Gulf states - feel they must ensure food security for their people, even at the cost of the food security of other countries.

At the same time, exacerbating the problem is the scramble by mainly European firms for so-called idle or marginal lands on which to grow biofuels.

Stung by the criticism of scientists last year that using farmland for such crops can actually boost carbon emissions and increase food prices, biofuels firms have been scouting about for cheap ‘wasteland'.

"EU policies is certainly contributing to Western biofuels investment," Ruth Meinzen-Dick, one of the report's two authors, told EUobserver,

"When you hear the word ‘wasteland' or ‘unused', it usually does have some use, just not uses that are officially recognised," she added, "whether as a village common or as pastureland, gathering nuts, honey, or for rattan."

The danger is, her report warns, that these companies risk setting off unrest as communities react to the loss of their lands.

Jatropha, palm oil

Details about the deals, the size of land purchased or leased, and the amount invested are often murky and shrouded in secrecy, according to IFPRI, but they highlight a number of agreements.

UK-based Sun Biofuels has secured land in Ethiopia and Mozambique for the cultivation of biofuels produced from jatropha, as well as some 5,500 hectares in Tanzania for the same purpose. Britain's CAMS Group has also purchased 45,000 hectares for jatropha biofuels in Tanzania. The researchers found that another 10,000 hectares have been secured in Nigeria by Trans4mation Agric-tech, also of the UK.

Ethiopia is home to 13,000 hectares secured under a contract farming agreement with Germany's Flora EcoPower for biofuel crop cultivation.

Sweden's Skebab has secured 100,000 hectares in Mozambique for biofuels as well.

Meanwhile in the east, Denmark's Trigon has secured 100,000 hectares from Russia. Sweden's Alpcot Agro has secured 128,000 hectares and Black Earth Farming 331,000 hectares in the country. Landkom, a UK firm, has leased 100,000 hectares in Ukraine.

Food production meanwhile is usually the focus of the land acquisition by emerging economies. The UAE has secured some 378,000 hectares to grow corn, alfalfa, wheat, potatoes and beans, while Saudi Arabia is in the process of gaining access to 500,000 hectares in Tanzania.

Some emerging economies as well are also getting in on the biofuels bonanza. China has secured a whopping 2.8 million hectares in the Democratic Republic of Congo for oil palm and is hoping to access another 2 million hectares in Zambia for jatropha.

All told, the acreage secured through lease or purchase by Asian and European private and public investors amounts to 15-20 million hectares, at a cost of €15-20 billion ($20-30 bn).

By comparison, annual net official development aid by OECD countries amounted to around €90 billion ($120bn) in 2008, €50 billion of which came from the EU.

Jobs, infrastructure

"Additional investments in agriculture in developing countries ... should be welcome in principle," the report says.

These land acquisitions could inject much-needed investment into agriculture and rural areas in poor developing countries, with the monies potentially creating farm jobs, improving rural infrastructure and aiding technology transfer.

But, avers the report, "the scale, the terms, and the speed of land acquisition have provoked opposition in some target countries" as local people lose access to and control over land on which they depend.

Often the agreements are not made on equal terms between the investors and local communities, resulting in smallholders who cannot effectively negotiate with these big players being displaced from their land and unable to seek redress in the event of foreign investors failing to live up to agreements.

Elsewhere, people may not have formal title to the land on which they depend, but instead use it under customary tenure arrangements. As a result, they are frequently pushed off the plot so that the official ‘owner' of the land can profit from the sale or lease to the investor.

According to IRIN, the UN's humanitarian information news service, the lease of coastal wetlands in Kenya by Qatar threatens to displace thousands of locals who use the region for produce and livestock farming. Local councillors have said they will go to court to prevent the government from leasing the property.

In Madagascar meanwhile, the IFPRI researchers write, negotiations with South Korea's Daewoo Logistics Corporation to lease 1.3 million hectares for maize and oil palm played a role in the political conflicts that led to the overthrow of the government in 2009.

Code of conduct

"It is possible to have win-win scenarios," said Ms Meinzen-Dick, "but it requires making sure that local people will at least be no worse off and hopefully derive some share of the benefits from the investment."

To this end, IFPRI has recommended a code of conduct for foreign land acquisition and is developing guidelines on negotiations with investors in tandem with the African Union. The researchers want to see transparency in negotiations so that existing landholders are informed and involved in any land deal negotiations.

There should also be respect for existing land rights, including customary and common property rights.

And when national food security is at risk, they say, domestic supplies should have priority and foreign investors should not have a right to export during an acute national food crisis.

The IFPRI-African-Union guidelines are to be presented to the continent's leaders at their July summit.

Will EU demand for biofuel mean starvation for world's poorest?

April 29, 2009

The controversy surrounding the use of biofuel in road fuel has heightened as one African publication accuses the biofuel industry of taking food directly out of the mouths of the hungry. Business Daily Africa’s article entitled ‘Africa to feed EU’s appetite for biofuels as its people starve’ explores the relationship between the European Union’s introduction of a biofuel directive in 2008 and rises in food prices.

In addition to concerns about the true carbon footprint and environmental cost of biofuel, a coalition of international charities accuses the EU Biofuel Directive (which requires all road fuel used by member states to consist of 10 per cent biofuel by 2020) of making biofuels much more profitable than feeding the hungry, the publication reports.

The French chapters of Friends of the Earth, Oxfam, Catholic Committee against Hunger and for Development (CCFD) report that the figures speak for themselves; 232 kilos of maize are needed to produce 50 litres of ethanol — roughly enough to fill an average car tank, or enough to provide the amount of calories a child needs in a year.

Ambroise Mazal, who heads CCFD’s side of the campaign against biofuels told Business Daily Africa: ‘‘The problem remains that, as of today, the EU can produce a mere two per cent of the required total [to meet the Biofuel Directive]. European agriculture could potentially account for half of the required 10 per cent, but the rest will have to be imported from outside the EU.”

According to the publication, many African countries have expanded single-crop farming surfaces as a response to European hunger for biofuel, leading to land, water and other limited resources being diverted from scarce food-producing crops.

Several international institutions including the International Monetary Fund have acknowledged the social, economic and nutritional impacts on developing countries and their already tense food resources. Despite this, several African states have drafted policies in favour of biofuel crops.

Here in the UK, the Renewable Fuels Agency which was set up by the Government to implement the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO), a response to the EU Biofuel Directive, commissioned the Gallagher Review last year to investigate the link between biofuels, rising carbon emissions and spiralling food prices.

The report concluded that the use of biofuels in road fuel had lead to some unintended environmental and social problems. An amendment was subsequently made to the first target set out RTFO, to 5 per cent biofuel by 2013-14 instead of the initial target of 5 per cent by 2010-11, but it failed to halt the demand for biofuel.

The UK exceeded its biofuel obligations last year, making around 2.7 per cent of the total UK road transport fuel supply. Research last year by Friends of the Earth found that some fuel suppliers were adding twice as much biofuel as required by law, bulking out their fuel with cheap biofuel and defying the RFO’s call to slow demand for the controversial ‘green’ fuel.

In Senegal, a country affected by food riots a year ago, up to 200,000 hectares (10 per cent of the country’s arable land) might be set aside for jatropha crops for biofuels.

Second and third generation biofuels are supposed to limit environmental and social impacts because of either the use of non food-producing crops or biomass such as algae and fungus.

‘‘That’s a sham,’’ insists Mazal, ‘‘because second generation fuels made from non-edible crops still take up arable lands and the research is far from developing sustainable biomass in laboratories.’’
To read the full article, visit Business Daily Africa.

What do you think? Should the EU and the UK halt obligations for biofuels until such time as we can be sure of the environmental and social impacts? Should fossil fuel suppliers be stopped from exceeding legal obligations on biofuel? Are biofuels green?

Source: TheGreenCarWebsite.co.uk

NEW SCRAMBLE FOR AFRICAN LAND

Dyer: African land grab will be tenuous at best

Gwynne Dyer

source: http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_12372029

14 May 2009

In the past two years, various non-African countries -- China, India, South Korea, Britain and the Arab Gulf states lead the pack -- have been taking over huge tracts of farmland in Africa by lease or purchase, to produce food or bio-fuels for their own use. Critics call them "neocolonialists," but they will not be as successful as the old ones.

The scale of the land grab is truly impressive. In Sudan, South Korea has acquired 1.7 million acres of land to grow wheat. The United Arab Emirates, which already has 74,000 acres in Sudan, is investing in another 959,000 acres to grow corn, alfalfa, wheat, potatoes and beans. In Tanzania, Saudi Arabia is seeking 1.2 million acres.

Even bigger chunks of land are being leased to produce bio-fuels. China has acquired 6.9 million acres in the Democratic Republic of Congo to create the world's largest oil-palm plantation (replacing all that messy rainforest and useless wildlife with tidy lines of palm trees), and is negotiating for 4.9 million acres in Zambia to grow jatropha. British firms have secured big tracts of land in Angola, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Nigeria and Tanzania.

Why Africa? Because that's the last place where there are large areas of good agricultural land that aren't already completely occupied by local farmers. There are usually some peasants scratching a living from the land, but they are few and poor, and they can easily be bought or driven out.

For the foreigners, the lure is
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profit, or food security, or both. For those who are investing in bio-fuels, there are real profits to be made, at least in the short term. But for those seeking food security, the new African food resources will probably become unavailable just when they are needed most.


It was the surge in grain prices in 2007-2008 that drove many countries that depend heavily on imported food to start acquiring African farmland. The immediate reason for a doubling or tripling of the price of wheat, rice and corn was a couple of local crop failures and the diversion of large amounts of American corn into bio-fuel production, but the underlying cause was that the global food supply is falling further and further behind demand.

Since 1945 the world's population has tripled, and so has its food production, growing at an average of about 3 percent annually through the 1950s, '60s, '70s, '80s, and most of the '90s. But for most of the past decade grain production has essentially flatlined, while the global population has gone on growing.

By 2006, just before the prices soared, the world grain reserve (the amount that is left in the storage bins each year just before the new harvest comes in) had shrunk from 116 days of food for everybody in the world in 1999 to only 57 days. Last year's generally good harvests brought prices back down, but the outlook for this year is dire, with drought in about half of the world's main grain-growing areas.

So wouldn't it be nice if you didn't have to compete for scarce stocks of grain at inflated prices on the international grain market when prices soar? Wouldn't it be great if you could rely instead on your own food supply, even if it isn't located in your own country? That's why it's mostly countries that depend heavily on food imports that are involved in the current land rush in Africa -- but they are forgetting two things.

The first is that sovereignty trumps contractual obligations every time. If the African countries that are leasing their land fall into difficulties in feeding their own populations, as they are likely to do if world grain prices rise sharply, the first resource they will turn to is the foreign plantations on their territory. Governments that cannot feed their populations face overthrow, and will break contracts without the slightest hesitation.

The second is that when things really get tough -- when climate change starts to bite, grain yields are falling in most places, and what remains of the international grain market cannot meet demand at any price -- Africa is not the place to be sourcing your emergency supply of grain. Almost the entire continent lies in the tropics or the sub-tropics, which is where food production will be hit worst.

The "neocolonialists" will make some money in the short term, and they may even enjoy a false sense of security for a while, but they will not get much for their investment in the long run.

Trouble is, Africans will not get much out of it, either, although some of their leaders certainly will.

JATROPHA & THE NEW SCRAMBLE FOR LAND IN AFRICA

Why Ghana is attracting investments in biofuels?

source: http://ghanabusinessnews.com/2009/05/11/why-ghana-is-attracting-investments-in-biofuels/

Ghana has become a major centre of attraction for the cultivation of biofuels in Africa for a number of reasons, even though some of these reasons are hard to tell.

Currently, the country features prominently on the radar of alternative energy interests, especially in the cultivation of the non-food plant jatropha for the production of biofuels.

Ghana, Thailand and Uruguay have been identified by a study conducted by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies in 2007, as becoming the leading producer countries of the emerging renewable fuel known as biodiesel.

One of the factors that put Ghana among the leading league of nations with a high potential for biodiesel production is the fact that large volumes of the product can be produced at low cost.

Overall, the study ranked Malaysia, Thailand, Colombia, Uruguay and Ghana as the developing nations most likely to attract biodiesel investment, not only because of their strong agricultural industries, but also due to their relative safety and stability, lack of debt, among other economic factors.

Ghana is ranked high in Africa as a politically stable country, with a growing culture of democracy. Labour is also believed to be cheaper in Ghana than in most African countries, even though some investors disagree on that score.

One investor in the biofuels sector in Ghana argues that the cost of labour in Ghana is not cheap after all, because in his view, “the Ghanaian worker is not efficient as compared to the Chinese worker.”

While an employer might be paying a Ghanaian worker what is estimated to be low wages, the Ghanaian worker is proverbially known “to pretend to be working, while the employer pretends to be paying him.”

Indeed, this is not only a notion but a fact, because most employers in Ghana pay very low wages, irrespective of qualifications, experience or job description. Most Ghanaian workers are therefore, not motivated to give off their best. Substandard work performance has become a norm in Ghana.

Ironically, however, this belief that wages are low in Ghana also makes the country a choice destination for industries, especially the biofuels businesses.

There are companies from Brazil, Italy, Norway, Israel, China, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium and India investing in the area in Ghana.

They are cultivating fields in the Volta, Brong Ahafo, Ashanti, Eastern and the Northern regions of Ghana. The main non-food crop that these companies are planting is jatropha.


Jatropha seeds

Jatropha has oil-rich seeds that can be used to produce biodiesel.

While its supporters argue that it can be grown on semi-arid land and so poses less of a threat to food output than other biofuel feedstocks such as grains and vegetable oils, its opponents argue that investors are taking away productive agriculture land from poor local farmers for the purpose.

Currently, there is an ongoing debate, accusations and counter-accusations of land grabbing between NGOs, Action Aid and FoodSPAN on one hand and Rural Consult, a consultancy firm on biofuels on the other.

One of the companies, Agroils of Italy is currently cultivating jatropha on 10,000 hectares of land in Yeji in the Brong Ahafo region of Ghana for biofuels.

Israeli company, Galten has acquired 100,000 hectares of land and an Indian company is requesting for 50,000 hectares of land from the Ghana Investment Promotion Council (GIPC), to cultivate jatropha.

A company from the Netherlands has started a pilot project on 10 acres in the northern region and the Chinese are also doing a pilot project.
Gold Star Farms Ltd., is cultivating five million acres of land to plant jatropha for the production of biofuels for export.

A Norwegian company ScanFuel Ltd., has started operations outside Kumasi in the Ashanti region to produce biofuel. The company aims to start initial cultivation of jatropha seeds on 10,000 hectares of land.

The company which has a Ghanaian subsidiary, ScanFuel Ghana Ltd., says its Ghanaian unit has contracted about 400,000 hectares of land, with up to 60 percent reserved for biofuel production, “not less” than 30 percent for food production and the remainder for biodiversity buffer zones.

Another Norwegian company, Biofuels Africa Ltd., the only one among the about 20 biofuels companies cultivating jatropha to receive an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) permit from Ghana’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which covers 23,762.45 hectares of its project area is operating in two locations.

Steinar Kolnes, CEO, Co-founder and director of BioFuel Africa Limited has told ghanabusinessnews.com by email that the company is currently operating in two locations in Ghana. The company has a 300 hectare test farm in Sogakope in the Volta region and a 10,696.32 hectares in Yendi in the Northern region.

According to him, the company has planted a total of 660 hectares of jatropha on its projects.

One of the complexities that might confront the growing biofuels industry in Ghana is the challenge of land acquisitions. There is a plurality of land tenure and management prevailing in Ghana.

There is the state/public system and the customary system. These systems have been poorly articulated over the years leading to increasing conflicts associated with land.

Public lands in Ghana fall into two main categories: land which has been compulsorily for a public purpose or in the public interest under the state lands Act 1962 (Act 125) or other relevant statute; and land which has been vested in the President, in trust for a landholding community under the Administration of Stool Lands Act, 1962 (Act 123.)

While government is working to streamline the land tenure system in the country, there are some advocating for a land bank system to make land acquisition smoother and beneficial to all.

Ghana is certainly attractive for investments, especially in the biofuels sector.

But the question some observers of the biofuel sector are asking is why is the country so enthusiastic about biofuels when it has found oil in commercial quantities?

Others are also asking why an agriculture country where only 16 per cent of arable land is used for food production would not rather concentrate on developing the food crop sector, but is diverting resources and labour in agric for the cultivation of non-food crops for biofuels.

By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi

Email: edogbevi@hotmail.com

BIOFUEL HOAX: JATROPHA AND LAND GRAB

source: http://www.navdanya.org/news/5dec07.htm

Across the world biofuels/Agro fuels are being promoted as an alternative to fossil fuels and an answer to climate change. They have however started to generate intense controversy by leading to land conflicts and rise in food prices.

Navdanya released its study on the social, economic and ecological impact of Jatropha cultivation for bio diesel in India "Biofuel Hoax: Jatropha and Land Grab" at a press conference on 27th of November 2007. The study authored by Dr Vandana Shiva and Manu Sankar is based on field work in the three states of Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan.

India plans to cultivate Jatropha in 11 million hectares. In a land starved country this diversion of land has serious consequences for rural livelihoods and rural eco systems. The Companies involved in the gold rush of Jatropha in India are D1 Oil, Godrej Agrovet Ltd, Tata Motors, Indian Oil Corporation, Kochi Refineries Ltd, Biohealthcare Pvt, The southern online Biotechnologies Ltd, Jain irrigation System Ltd, Natural Bioenergy Ltd and Reliance Energy Ltd.

In Chhattisgarh, a predominantly tribal belt, agricultural crops of tribals have been destroyed to plant Jatropha. To promote jatropha plantations, the tribals are being denied their inherent right to make decisions about land use for which the local community (Gram Sabha) is the highest competent authority . This is a violation of the legal recognition of collective rights and Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996. The study also has details of the villages in Chhattisgarh which have faced land conflicts because the people have opposed the cultivation of Jatropha plantations.

Chhattisgarh is the center of diversity of rice and according to Dr Richaria, India's eminent rice scientist it was the source of more than two hundred thousand rice varieties. Planting Jatropha monocultures in place of the indigenous diversity of tribal crop lands is not just a destruction of the food security and livelihood of the tribals, it is also a threat to India's biodiversity.

Two Biaga tribals whose crops have been damaged by the Government for Jatropha cultivation were present at the press conference.

Santhoshi, from Daiharibagh village, Kota block of Bilaspur district, " the forest department forcefully planted Jatropha on our paddy land. They told us if u don't allow us to plant jatropha you will go to jail. We have send our plea petitions to the chief minister, District collector and BDO but of no avail. At last we had to uproot the jatropha plants that were planted in our agricultural land".

Dharam singh, from Pandripani village, from Kota block of Bilaspur village, said "the gram sabha in my village did not give the permission for the forest department to plant Jatrophas in our agricultural land. But they planted it by force and issued court notices to 10 people including me to vacate our agricultural land".

Instead of recognizing the rights of the tribals as required by the PESA Act of 1996 and the recognition of the Forest dwellers Rights Act of 2004, the government is using jatropha plantations to undo the constitutional safeguards that tribals have to their right to land and livelihood.

Jatropha is not just leading to Land grab, it is also leading to Biopiracy

Dr Sunil Puri, who used to be the head of Department of Forestry at the Indira Gandhi Agricultural University in Raipur had illegally taken 18 elite varieties of Jatropha from the University collection. A week later he joined the company. Local protests followed and a report by a state government inquiry into the affairs concluded that Dr puri, and D1, by accepting the plants without the necessary authority, had breached India's new biodiversity laws, designed to protect the country's bio resources from foreign exploitation.

In Vidarbha, Maharashtra the company involved does contract farming with the farmers . They have taken advantage of the failure of Bt cotton crops and have lured farmers into cultivation of Jatropha. The corporates have been successful in inducing the farmers into Jatropha on the false promise that the plantations will give them immense returns after three years. The Government is also providing subsidies to the farmers who plant Jatropha. Govind Chithuji Jungare, a farmer of Buldana who shifted from cotton to Jatropha has committed suicide in April 2007, because of the Government's inability to provide with the promised subsidy.

Rajasthan, a desert state is also seeing the destruction of village commons and grazing lands (referred to as "Wastelands" in colonial revenue categories) by the imposition of Jatropha plantations. On 7th of May 2007, The Government of Rajasthan passed rules under its powers conferred by Section 261 of the Land Revenue Act of 1956 to create a new law called "The Rajasthan Land Revenue (Allotment of wasteland for biofuel plantation and biofuel based industrial and processing unit) Rules, 2007". The Rules allow 1000 ha - 5000 ha of village common lands (called "wastelands" in the colonial revenue category) to be transferred for 20 years from the village community to biofuel industry. The land allocation is for biofuel plantations, especially Jatropha, and biofuel based industry and processing units.

Village community pastures are the common resources in Rajasthan, having potential for equitable accessibility to all classes for the rural population. Rajasthan has 1.94 million hectares of common pasture lands and more than 70% of the total geographical area are under the common lands. The Jatropha cultivation is severely limiting the ability of the commons to support rural livelihoods comprehensively and thereby harming the ecological services they render. Livestock is the major source of livelihood for the poor and they are heavily dependent on the common pastures for the grazing of their cattle. By planting Jatropha the fodder availability of the cattle will be directly affected.

The destruction of the livelihoods of pastoralists and livestock herders such as Gujjars have already led to major riots in Rajasthan. The transfer of commons and grazing lands from providing fodder to livestock in the local economy to providing fuel for automobiles of the rich will further erode rural livelihoods and increase social tensions.

The poor live in a biomass / biodiversity based economy. Diversion of land to industrial biofuels will also divert biodiversity / organic matter from basic needs of the poor and maintenance of ecological cycles. It will create total destitution and collapse of rural agro-ecosystems as biodiversity and water are diverted by industry for biofuel.

Dr Vandana Shiva, Director, Navdanya has described the mad rush for Jatropha plantations, a recipe for ecological, economic and social disaster.

RECOMMENDATION

1. The industrial biofuel policy is not a solution to the climate crisis or an answer to peak oil. The massive infrastructure of fossil fuel based production and transportation systems cannot be maintained by converting food to fuel, and plants to oil for cars. The heavy infrastructure of automobiles and power generation needs to be adapted to the limits of the planet. The planet should not be further plundered and the poor should not be further burdened to uphold a non-sustainable system for a few years more.

2. The village commons need to be protected by and for local communities - to provide for their basic needs of food, fodder, fuel, medicine etc. Rejuvenation of village commons through biodiversity that maximizes production for local needs should be immediately taken up under rural employment guarantee schemes and environmental programmes. Their transfer to industry for jatropha or other plantations must be immediately stopped to avert ecological and economic catastrophe. The Rajasthan biofuel law must be withdrawn immediately. The colonial policy of characterising village commons as "wastelands" must be immediately revised.

3. To protect rural livelihoods and food and energy security of the rural poor, agriculture policy must shift from chemical / industrial / corporate farming to biodiversity ecological farming. The village commons play a vital role in providing inputs to the agrarian economy. Integrated and sustainable sylvi-agri-pastoral systems need to be protected and strengthened to adapt to climate change. Decentralised food and energy systems are vital to enhance climate resilience and reduce climate impact. Land must be used for the food and energy needs of the people, not the fuel demands of industry. The biological produce of commons must first go to meet local needs.

4. Decisions about the use of Village commons should be made by the village community (Gram Sabha). In the Scheduled areas anyways this is a constitutional obligation. Local communities should be given absolute rights over the land use decisions for enhancing their livelihood and ecological security.

5. Instead of displacing tribals by imposing jatropha plantations the government should implement the new law recognizing the rights of the tribals.

6. Legal action needs to be taken to stop jatropha biopiracy. D1 company should immediately return the stolen germ plasm to India.

To read the entire report on biofuels, please click on the title link above.

For more information, please contact

Navdanya
A-60 Hauz Khas, New Delhi – 110 016
TeL: 2653 2124 / 2696 8077
navslow@yahoo.co.in, vshiva@vsnl.com

ALGAE BIOFUEL COMPANY GOES BANKRUPT...

With GreenFuel’s demise is algae still viable?

By Susan Wilson

source: http://tech.blorge.com/Structure:%20/2009/05/15/with-greenfuels-demise-is-algae-still-viable/

May 15 2009

GreenFuel, one of the best funded biofuel companies using algae has gone belly up. Was it the credit crunch or the technology that did them in? It is difficult to tell if GreenFuel’s inability to get Round 3 funding for its process was the fault of the current economy or problems with the technology, either way it does not bode well for other algae companies.

Greentech Media announced GreenFuel’s demise this morning. So far the company has not issued a press release or made any comments on its web page. GreenFuel had received the most funding to date for companies using algae to generate biofuel. The process that the company used was growing algae in bioreactors. Tubes filled with microbes and algae that used photosynthesis and CO2.

EcoGeek added that GreenFuel had suffered some technical glitches that caused the company to miss delivery on its first contract. Whether that missed deadline hastened its demise is still unclear.

That is where the viability of other algae biofuel companies comes into question. There has been an explosion of biofuel companies and algae companies in particular. Several of the companies had adopted GreenFuel’s bioreactor approach to producing fuel from algae. It is those companies right now that are most in jeopardy.

There are companies that use different methods. Solazyme grows its algae in dark vats. The process is more expensive because it requires feeding the algae sugar rather than using free CO2 and sunlight. There are some companies that are using different versions of bioreactors. Whether those will work better than GreenFuel’s is yet to be determined.

An undisputed fact is that “algae is more productive per acre” than other sources of biofuel like corn, palm, jatropha and other plants. “Algae advocates claim that they should be able to get 5,000 to 10,000 gallons of feedstock per acre per year. 16,000 square miles of pond space (or the equivalent) would be enough to supply the U.S.”

Whether algae produced biofuel will actually make it to the pumps is a crapshoot right now. Statistically it looks great on paper but will any of the processes in use now be able to provide biofuel in sufficient quantity or low enough price to make it viable?

$400+ Billion in Subsidies for Biofuels

Biofuels Slated to Receive More than $400 Billion in Federal Subsidies

Thursday, May 7, 2009

source: http://www.foe.org/400-billion-subsidies-biofuelssource

New report from Friends of the Earth documents how biofuels industry gains at taxpayers’ and environment’s expense

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Friends of the Earth released a report today that examines the extent to which the biofuels industry is subsidized by federal tax credits and a federal renewable fuels mandate. The report finds that between 2008 and 2022, biofuels will receive more than $400 billion in subsidies.

The report also shows that, rather than promoting the production of less harmful biofuels, many of these subsidies are supporting the most environmentally damaging ones, such as corn ethanol.

“The size of these subsidies is extraordinary, particularly given how poorly we screen the environmental impacts produced by their recipients. The subsidies are accelerating environmental damage,” said Doug Koplow of Earth Track, who authored the report. “There are far better ways to spend this money.”

“What we’ve found is that not only is the biofuels industry harming the environment, but that the government is paying it to do so,” said Kate McMahon, biofuels campaigner at Friends of the Earth. “President Obama released a $3.5 trillion budget proposal today. If he’s looking for a place to make some cuts, these giveaways to the biofuels industry would be a great place to start.”

The report can be viewed at http://www.foe.org/sites/default/files/FOE%20VEETC%20Evaluation%20FINAL.pdf.

A one-page document summarizing the report’s findings can be found at: http://www.foe.org/sites/default/files/VEETC%201%20pager%20FINAL.pdf.

More information about Friends of the Earth’s work to roll back environmentally harmful biofuels subsidies can be found at http://www.foe.org/biofuelssubsidies.

CONTACT:

Nick Berning, 202-222-0748
Kate McMahon, 202-222-0715

Biofuels: The past, present and future

By Justin Smith

2/2/2009

source: http://www.energycurrent.com/index.php?id=3&storyid=15704

The world of biofuels is as diverse as it is controversial. From being hailed as a great savior from the perils of using fossil fuels, to being a pariah that is leading to less food to go around, biofuels have, at best, a mixed reputation.

That said, not all biofuels are created equally and many different types exist, each with their own sets of pros and cons. As such, many of the negative stereotypes should not be applied to all types of biofuels.

A long history

A biofuel is defined as any fuel that is derived from raw or recently living biological material, as compared to fossil fuels, which also come from biological material, but from organisms that have been dead for a very long time. Technically biofuels have been used for millennia in the form of wood fueled fires, and in terms of liquid biofuels for transportation, those have actually been around since the inception of the automobile.

According to biofuels information Web site Biofuel.org.uk, Rudolf Diesel, the German inventor of the diesel engine, designed his engine to run on peanut oil. "Later Henry Ford designed the Model T car, which was produced from 1903 to 1926. This car was completely designed to use hemp derived biofuel as fuel," the Web site says. However, when large supplies of crude oil were discovered in Texas and Pennsylvania, the more efficient and plentiful petroleum became the cheaper fuel of choice for auto makers.

Fuel shortages in World War II led both German and British scientists to develop biofuel/gasoline blends. Biofuel.org.uk explains, "In this period, Germany was one of the countries that underwent a serious shortage of fuel. It was during this period that various other inventions took place like the use of gasoline along with alcohol that was derived from potatoes. Britain was the second country [that] came up with the concept of grain alcohol mixed with petrol."

The United States' Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) created the Energy Policy Act (EPAct) in 1992 and revised it in 2005. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) says the act was "passed to reduce our nation's reliance on foreign petroleum, and improve air quality."

The DOE states, "Several parts of [the] EPAct were designed to encourage [the] use of alternative fuels, which are not derived from petroleum, that could help reduce dependence on imported oil in transportation. Titles III and V employ regulatory approaches for encouraging the fundamental changes necessary to building a self-sustaining alternative fuel market."

The EPAct gave biofuels a greater platform on which to build demand. That fact, coupled with the sky-high oil prices last summer, has led to increased interest in biofuels as both a cleaner and potentially cheaper and safer supply of energy. However, the cleanliness and price of biofuels varies by what type of plant is being cultivated and converted to fuel.

Ethanol and biodiesel

The first generation of biofuels is, by far, the most common type, and they are also what incite the most passionate debates on the subject. That said, they are, in all likelihood, not the future of the biofuel industry. Ethanol and biodiesel are the most popular of this type of biofuels.

First generation biofuels are primarily derived from two types of sources: crops that have a high sugar or starch content, or using the oils of various plants. Energy giant Shell, which has a division dedicated to finding viable fuel source, states, "When choosing raw material for biofuels, people have looked first to plants that can be grown regularly in large quantities.

"Today's most widespread biofuel, ethanol, is commonly made from crops of sugar cane, corn or wheat. The second most widespread type of biofuel is often made from rapeseed, palm oil or soy beans and is known as FAME (fatty acid methyl esters)."

One downside to such fuels is that they do not provide as much power as gasoline, so more must be used to generate an equivalent amount of power. For this reason, Shell says, "today's standard vehicle engines can only use fuel with small amounts of ethanol or FAME blended in (5-10 percent)."

Engines do exist that can use much higher concentrations of ethanol. Known as flex-fuel engines, vehicles with this type of power plant can use up to 100 percent ethanol, although in the United States automobiles are currently only allowed to use up to 85 percent blends. However, some countries, such as Brazil, permit people to run vehicles on pure ethanol.

Another type of first generation biofuel, biodiesel, is quite different from ethanol. Biodiesel, as described by the National Biodiesel Board, is "made through a chemical process called transesterification whereby the glycerin is separated from the fat or vegetable oil. The process leaves behind two products -- methyl esters (the chemical name for biodiesel) and glycerin (a valuable byproduct usually sold to be used in soaps and other products)."

Biodiesel can be blended with petroleum, but diesel-powered vehicles can also run on 100 percent biodiesel, often with no modifications to their engines, especially newer versions. It is possible to use straight vegetable oil in an engine, but as it is so viscous, it must be thinned by heat so it can be atomized by the fuel injectors, according to Ghent Bio-Energy Valley, a Ghent, Belgium-based partnership focused on developing sustainable bio-energy.

The other first generation biofuels

While biodiesel may be the most common form of biofuel, there are less familiar varieties that still play a role in the industry. Biogas, syngas and solid biofuels are each other types of first generation biofuels. One upside to these fuels is that they do not always require food crops to be made.

Biogas is produced through the process anaerobic digestion, which is the break down of organic materials, including waste, by microorganisms in the absence of oxygen. According to Biofuel.org.uk, "The biogas produced is very rich in methane, which can be easily recovered through the use of mechanical biological treatment systems."

Biogas is often naturally produced in landfills and can be captured, but this method has the potential do harm as it is a greenhouse gas. "A less clean form of biogas is the landfill gas which is produced by the use of naturally occurring anaerobic digesters, but the main threat is that these gases can be a severe threat if escapes into the atmosphere," Biofuel.org.uk explains.

Syngas, which is short for synthesis gas, has a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen in varying amounts. The gas is created through a combination of gasification, combustion and pyrolysis, which is a way to decompose something through the application of heat, of organic material. Having about half the energy of natural gas, syngas is useful when split into its constituent parts to perform a range of tasks, from being a fertilizer to powering up a fuel cell.

Finally, since the category includes fuels like firewood, solid biofuels are the oldest form of biofuels. A wide variety of biomass types are useful as a solid biofuel, including sawdust, dried waste and grass. To improve efficiency, solid fuel is formed into pellets and burned, however burning raw biomass releases a number of unhealthy pollutants, and it still is not very efficient. Ghent Bio-Energy Valley says, "This is not a very efficient way of using biomass and what is more it has a number of documented ill effects for the health of the people using it, such as respiratory diseases because of soot emission and negative effects of CO-emission for pregnant women."

Cellulosic ethanol, the second generation biofuel

The second generation of biofuels comes in the form of cellulosic ethanol. This form of fuel is derived from a substance called lignocellulose, which makes up the bulk of the material in plants. As such, the vast majority of plants on Earth are capable of being a source for cellulosic ethanol.

Solid biofuels and cellulosic ethanol both have similarly huge ranges of sources, but while solid biofuels are basically just burned in a raw or near-raw state, plants are refined considerably to make cellulosic ethanol. Also, first generation ethanol is produced from the parts of plants like wheat, sugar cane and corn that people use for food; however, cellulosic ethanol is made from the remaining, more fibrous plant parts that have no value as food, such as stems, leaves and wood.

It requires a lot of work to remove the sugars from lignocellulose to make cellulosic ethanol, but the resulting fuel still has more energy than is required to make it. Currently two methods are used to make the fuel, one of which strives to separate the sugars, which are then fermented into alcohol, while the other method uses heat to break down plants then uses a different fermentation process to create the fuel.

The first method, known as cellulolysis, involves pretreating the plant material with chemicals or enzymes that begin to break down the plant through hydrolysis. Once the sugars are removed, they are fermented to create alcohol using varieties of yeast, but due to the complexity of the sugars, it can take a lot of yeast to get the job done. However, new yeasts are being created that more efficiently ferment the sugars, even ones that can perform hydrolysis and fermentation at the same time.

The other method to create cellulosic ethanol is called gasification. Instead of using a pretreatment to cause hydrolysis to separate the sugars that are then fermented, gasification uses heat to break down the plant into hydrogen, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. After, the gas is fermented using microbes that convert it to ethanol and water. Finally, the water is removed using distillation, leaving the ethanol.

While corn and wheat and other food crops can be used to create cellulosic ethanol, just about any other non-food plant can be used. Even though the use of non-food plants does not directly take food off people's plates, it does have to contend with food crops for arable land. One possible way to help solve this problem is using hardier plants that can grow in areas where food crops cannot, thus not competing with them. One such plant that is gaining in popularity is switchgrass, but to be truly useful as a fuel, a lot of it must be grown, which still requires a lot of land.

Competing with food crops for land is arguably cellulosic ethanol's biggest challenge, but not the only one. It also is still very expensive to process the plants. The microbes and enzymes it takes to break down the plants are not yet cheap to produce, and it takes a fair number of them to get the job done.

The DOE says, "To bring down costs, continued progress is needed in the development of energy crops dedicated to biofuel production, biomass-collection technologies, pretreatment methods that minimize the release of inhibitory by-products, and more efficient enzymes and microbes robust enough to withstand the stresses of industrial processing."

Also, the process of making the biofuel can have a negative impact on the environment. The chemicals that are used to pretreat plants can be harmful, and the heat used to break down plants through gasification is often generated through the use of hydrocarbons, primarily natural gas.

Biofuels: The Next Generation - Algae

The third generation of biofuels comes in the form of the water-based plants known as algae. The ability to transform algae into a biofuel is a burgeoning science, and could hold the future of the biofuel industry, although not without some hurdles to leap over first.

The DOE division of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) explains, "Microalgae are single-cell, photosynthetic organisms known for their rapid growth and high energy content. Some algal strains are capable of doubling their mass several times per day. In some cases, more than half of that mass consists of lipids or triacylglycerides--the same material found in vegetable oils. These bio-oils can be used to produce such advanced biofuels as biodiesel, green diesel, green gasoline and green jet fuel."

Once algae are grown and cultivated, there are three primary methods of extracting their oil. The first and simplest method is in the form of the oil press or expeller. Algae biofuel experts at Oilgae explain, "When algae is dried it retains its oil content, which then can be 'pressed' out with an oil press. (…) While more efficient processes are emerging, a simple process is to use a press to extract a large percentage (70-75 percent) of the oils out of algae."

The second extraction technique is the hexane solvent method, which can produce up to 95 percent of the oil in algae. Oilge says, "After the oil has been extracted using an expeller, the remaining pulp can be mixed with cyclohexane to extract the remaining oil content. The oil dissolves in the cyclohexane, and the pulp is filtered out from the solution. The oil and cyclohexane are separated by means of distillation."

The algae oil specialists say that the hexane solvent method requires the use of chemicals, such as hexane, benzene and ether. The downsides to using these solvents include the hazard of an explosion, as well as the risk that benzene is classified as a carcinogen.

Finally, the supercritical fluid extraction method can draw out up to nearly 100 percent of the oils. In this process, CO2 is pressurized and heated until it is both a gas and a liquid, at which point it is mixed with algae, removing the oil. The fact that this method requires additional complex machinery to create the pressure has detracted from its popularity.

Algae have a number of upsides over other biofuels. According to EERE, microalgae can potentially produce 100 times more oil per acre of land than soybeans or any other oil-producing crop. In addition, algae do not have to compete for land with food crops as it can be cultivated in large open ponds or closed photobioreactors, which can be sited in deserts and other non-arable areas.

Another plus is that algae are not picky and EERE says, "Many species of algae thrive in seawater, water from saline aquifers, or even wastewater from treatment plants." Also, the production of algae can actually mitigate carbon dioxide. EERE clarifies, "During photosynthesis, algae use solar energy to fix carbon dioxide (CO2) into biomass, so the water used to cultivate algae must be enriched with CO2. This requirement offers an opportunity to make productive use of the CO2 from power plants, biofuel facilities, and other sources."

The primary downside to using algal biofuels is that they are not economical to produce, at least not with current technology. EERE says, "Based on conservative estimates, algal biofuels produced in large volumes with current technology would cost more than US$8 per gallon (in contrast to US$4 per gallon for soybean oil today)."

According to EERE, to lower the cost of production, research must focus on a number of sectors, including controlled mass cultivation, algae for wastewater treatment, and harvesting and oil extraction technologies. The group says, "Particular attention must be paid to the engineering of sustainable microalgal systems and to the regulatory and environmental landscape."

ALGAE USED TO PRODUCE DIESEL BIOFUEL

Chemist says he has way to turn algae, other waste into diesel inexpensively

By Neal St. Anthony | McClatchy/Tribune News

April 26, 2009

source: http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/autocorner/chi-rides-algae-diesel-0426apr26,0,4550972.story

MINNEAPOLIS -- A Minnesota biofuels company that has attracted visits from financiers, scientists, customers and the federal government has produced a clean diesel fuel from algae harvested from a pond next door to its plant.

The development could prove big for the alternative-fuels business and the Midwestern economy.

Clayton McNeff, a chemist and veteran industrialist, said his family-owned SarTec Corp. has perfected a 3-year-old "continuous flow" process and produces about 1,000 gallons of diesel weekly for $1.25 to $1.75 per gallon from a variety of sources, from restaurant and ethanol-plant waste oils to non-edible crops and plain old pond scum.

"We see this as revolutionary technology, and we're not trying to keep it a secret," said McNeff, 40, who recently published a peer-reviewed scientific paper.

"You can deploy this technology using small mobile units, so you don't need to send feedstocks hundreds of miles," McNeff said. "You just use local crop waste, or ethanol waste oil or algae."

McNeff has raised about $7 million from family and friends to construct a "two-reactor" pilot plant in Isanti, Minn., which will open in June.

His Ever Cat Fuels expects to produce 4 million gallons of clean diesel annually from a variety of feedstocks.

"This technology has the potential to help with energy security and climate change," Peter Agre, a Nobel Prize-winning chemist who directs the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said in a recent letter of support to federal officials. "These are two of the most important issues we face in terms of our country's economic and environmental future."

The technology is rooted in a 2006 research project by then-Augsburg College student Brian Krohn and chemistry professor Arlen Gyberg, who turned to McNeff, also an Augsburg-trained chemist.

The U.S. consumes about 140 billion gallons of gasoline and 60 billion gallons of diesel per year, distilled mostly from imported oil, to fuel vehicles, trains and ships. Last year, in response to soaring fuel prices, national security and global warming concerns, President George W. Bush signed into law legislation that mandates increasing amounts of homegrown fuels from renewable sources.

National demand for biodiesel has grown to 450 million gallons this year from 25 million gallons in 2004, according to the Agricultural Utilization Research Institute.

"There are some really good business opportunities that make use of waste oils such as technology that Clayton is developing," said Doug Cameron, chief scientific adviser at investment bank Piper Jaffray & Co. "There is a big opportunity with algae. It is unproven at this point. But the research and use of algae at waste treatment plants, which also cleans up the phosphorus and other pollutants, and the use of carbon dioxide at power plants is encouraging."

The promise of Ever Cat's "Mcgyan Process" is that it can convert a variety of domestic non-food feedstocks through a low-energy, no-waste process that also could potentially employ hundreds throughout the Midwest.

In an interview, McNeff said SarTec, a 25-person company, and the Mcgyan Process have solved a vexing algae problem that should speed development of the promising feedstock.

BIOFUELS: NEW SCRAMBLE FOR LAND IN AFRICA & AROUND THE WORLD

Europe's Overseas Push into Biofuels

Companies are buying tracts of land in Africa, Russia, and Ukraine to produce biofuels in a move that could harm farmers in developing economies

By Leigh Phillips

source: http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/may2009/gb20090513_196796_page_2.htm

Massive tracts of land in Africa, Russia and Ukraine are being bought up or leased by richer countries to ensure access to food and for production of biofuels—a development that could result in unrest as locals begin to lose access over their territory.

An area roughly the same size as the amount of farmland in Germany is in play and at a cost of tens of billions of euros.

This phenomenon, a product of the twin food and fuel crises of last year, is threatening local communities whose traditional use of such lands is being undermined by the food and energy security needs of others.

This all comes from a warning issued on Monday (11 May) by the US-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), an agricultural research centre funded by an alliance of 64 governments around the world.

A year after the global food crisis that saw food riots and protests spread throughout the developing world—and even to some rich countries—a number of nations have learnt their lesson.

These countries—largely emerging nations such as China, India and the Gulf states—feel they must ensure food security for their people, even at the cost of the food security of other countries.

At the same time, exacerbating the problem is the scramble by mainly European firms for so-called idle or marginal lands on which to grow biofuels.

Stung by the criticism of scientists last year that using farmland for such crops can actually boost carbon emissions and increase food prices, biofuels firms have been scouting about for cheap ‘wasteland'.

"EU policies is certainly contributing to Western biofuels investment," Ruth Meinzen-Dick, one of the report's two authors, told EUobserver,

"When you hear the word ‘wasteland' or ‘unused', it usually does have some use, just not uses that are officially recognised," she added, "whether as a village common or as pastureland, gathering nuts, honey, or for rattan."

The danger is, her report warns, that these companies risk setting off unrest as communities react to the loss of their lands.
Jatropha, palm oil

Details about the deals, the size of land purchased or leased, and the amount invested are often murky and shrouded in secrecy, according to IFPRI, but they highlight a number of agreements.

UK-based Sun Biofuels has secured land in Ethiopia and Mozambique for the cultivation of biofuels produced from jatropha, as well as some 5,500 hectares in Tanzania for the same purpose. Britain's CAMS Group has also purchased 45,000 hectares for jatropha biofuels in Tanzania. The researchers found that another 10,000 hectares have been secured in Nigeria by Trans4mation Agric-tech, also of the UK.

Ethiopia is home to 13,000 hectares secured under a contract farming agreement with Germany's Flora EcoPower for biofuel crop cultivation.

Sweden's Skebab has secured 100,000 hectares in Mozambique for biofuels as well.

Meanwhile in the east, Denmark's Trigon has secured 100,000 hectares from Russia. Sweden's Alpcot Agro has secured 128,000 hectares and Black Earth Farming 331,000 hectares in the country. Landkom, a UK firm, has leased 100,000 hectares in Ukraine.

Food production meanwhile is usually the focus of the land acquisition by emerging economies. The UAE has secured some 378,000 hectares to grow corn, alfalfa, wheat, potatoes and beans, while Saudi Arabia is in the process of gaining access to 500,000 hectares in Tanzania.

Some emerging economies as well are also getting in on the biofuels bonanza. China has secured a whopping 2.8 million hectares in the Democratic Republic of Congo for oil palm and is hoping to access another 2 million hectares in Zambia for jatropha.

All told, the acreage secured through lease or purchase by Asian and European private and public investors amounts to 15-20 million hectares, at a cost of €15-20 billion ($20-30 bn).

By comparison, annual net official development aid by OECD countries amounted to around €90 billion ($120bn) in 2008, €50 billion of which came from the EU.

Jobs, infrastructure

"Additional investments in agriculture in developing countries should be welcome in principle," the report says.

These land acquisitions could inject much-needed investment into agriculture and rural areas in poor developing countries, with the monies potentially creating farm jobs, improving rural infrastructure and aiding technology transfer.

But, avers the report, "the scale, the terms, and the speed of land acquisition have provoked opposition in some target countries" as local people lose access to and control over land on which they depend.

Often the agreements are not made on equal terms between the investors and local communities, resulting in smallholders who cannot effectively negotiate with these big players being displaced from their land and unable to seek redress in the event of foreign investors failing to live up to agreements.

Elsewhere, people may not have formal title to the land on which they depend, but instead use it under customary tenure arrangements. As a result, they are frequently pushed off the plot so that the official ‘owner' of the land can profit from the sale or lease to the investor.

According to IRIN, the UN's humanitarian information news service, the lease of coastal wetlands in Kenya by Qatar threatens to displace thousands of locals who use the region for produce and livestock farming. Local councillors have said they will go to court to prevent the government from leasing the property.

In Madagascar meanwhile, the IFPRI researchers write, negotiations with South Korea's Daewoo Logistics Corporation to lease 1.3 million hectares for maize and oil palm played a role in the political conflicts that led to the overthrow of the government in 2009.
Code of conduct

"It is possible to have win-win scenarios," said Ms Meinzen-Dick, "but it requires making sure that local people will at least be no worse off and hopefully derive some share of the benefits from the investment."

To this end, IFPRI has recommended a code of conduct for foreign land acquisition and is developing guidelines on negotiations with investors in tandem with the African Union. The researchers want to see transparency in negotiations so that existing landholders are informed and involved in any land deal negotiations.

There should also be respect for existing land rights, including customary and common property rights.

And when national food security is at risk, they say, domestic supplies should have priority and foreign investors should not have a right to export during an acute national food crisis.

The IFPRI-African-Union guidelines are to be presented to the continent's leaders at their July summit.

Provided by EUobserver—For the latest EU related news

Jatropha: Biofuel Wonder Plant Fails to Deliver

by Kay Sexton

May 7th, 2009

source: http://redgreenandblue.org/2009/05/07/biofuel-wonder-plant-fails-to-deliver/

Back in 2004/2005 a lot of publicity was given to Jatropha curcas. The ugly, dwarfish little tree with toxic seeds was proclaimed as the answer to the biofuel problem, because:
(a) it could be grown in marginal agricultural conditions and
(b) there was no other use for it, except firewood, so there weren’t competing claims on it as a resource.

All this added up to a wonder scenario: grow jatropha on the world’s drought-ridden impoverished soils so that it didn’t take up space otherwise used for corn and soya which both have dual use as food/biofuel resources, lock up carbon as the trees grew and then use their seeds to meet the global demand for fuel. Sounded too good to be true …and it was.
Local use good – global trading market bad

The central American tree does indeed grow in marginal lands, but when planted in poor soil, it produces poor seed crops, and that means that without agricultural inputs, the outputs are nothing like anybody had hoped. Despite the fact that China, Brazil, Burma and Malaysia have all invested in jatropha plantations in their poorer agricultural reasons, the return on their investment is looking highly limited.

Part of the problem is that the assessment made of the productivity of the tree necessarily used trees that had survived to maturity, rather than new plantation trees. This means that the inputs to the tree (fertiliser, rain or other water, mulch or other nutrients) may have varied over time and the trees that were measured may have been given much more support, whether by farmers or by nature, than was originally factored in to the equation. Much of the world’s drought-land has become highly impoverished over the past two or three decades but may have been richer in food and water for plants in the past.

This discovery leads to the same dilemma that emerges with all other biofuels – it becomes a food versus fuel debate about whether scarce resources should be used to support food crops or crops that can be sold to produce energy.
Burma fails to deliver on biofuel initiative

In Burma, the military junta ordered the population to plant jatropha, and as a result, plantations, rice paddies and even home gardens were dug up and turned over to jatropha, in part out of fear that failure to carry out the edict could lead to fines or maybe even imprisonment. But because there is no international market, nor an established infrastructure to mill and store the oil, much of the crop grown in Burma simply rots.

However, in India, a different approach might lead to a partial answer to the dilemma. Following the example of Mali, the Indian government intends to turn 27 million acres of marginal agricultural land over to jatropha, which will then be milled locally to make lamp oil and fuel for cooking stoves, as well as providing an easily portable fertiliser made from the remnants of the crushed seed, which can be used to enrich croplands as the toxicity inherent in the tree can be broken down by micro-organisms in the soil.

Researchers are trying to improve the yield of the crop, and because jatropha has a higher energy content per gallon than other biofuels, this could be part of the answer too. But both partial answers: community use and agricultural improvement, are long-term projects: jatropha, despite the hype, will not be a contributor to fuel security on the planet in the near, or even the middle future.

JATROPHA BIOFUEL: FAILED EXPERIENCE IN INDIA

Jatropha seeds yield little hope for India’s oil dream

By Richard Orange

Source: http://www.thenational.ae/article/20090511/BUSINESS/705119944/-1/SPORT

Jatropha plants will grow in wasteland, but to get a high yield the plants must be well cared for, says Suman Jha, a researcher. Prashanth Vishwanathan/ Reuters

Back in 2005, Professor RR Shah sent a team to Navsari Agricultural University’s most parched and desolate strip of land, a farm in the Vyasa district of India’s northern state of Gujarat. Their instructions: to set up a model farm for jatropha, the hardy shrub with oil-rich seeds that were then emerging as one of the most promising alternatives to crude oil.

At the time, jatropha’s promise seemed boundless. APJ Abdul Kalam, the president, even used his presidential address that year to extol its virtues. Jatropha can survive in the most arid wastelands, the story went, so vast barren swathes of India could be put to productive use. It is inedible so it would not cause a backlash by competing with food crops. The government announced a scheme to plant 13 million hectares, enough to generate nearly 500,000 barrels of jatropha oil per day.

But as Prof Shah’s project in Vyasa nears its end this month, the dean of agribusiness at Navsari is sceptical. “There is no yield,” he says. “The literature said that with dry land, after four years’ growth, you can get a yield of 1kg per plant. For us, it is hardly 200g per plant.”

Navsari is not alone. As the findings come in from pilot schemes at 22 different agricultural colleges across India, the central claim of jatropha’s evangelists, that it thrives in barren land, is looking threadbare.

And that is even before you study the difficulties jatropha faces competing with crude oil at today’s prices. According to Dharmendra Parekh, the managing director of Aditya Aromatics, a Jatropha pioneer in Gujarat, oil from the shrub now costs more than 100 rupees (Dh7.5) per litre to produce, compared with 34 rupees per litre for normal diesel.

Suman Jha, a researcher on Prof Shah’s team, shows me patches where he is growing the plant with fertiliser, intermingled with other crops and trees. Even here, it is a dull and unremarkable green shrub, but at least it is thriving, producing as much as 4kg per plant.

“This is not a wasteland crop,” Dr Jha says. “It needs fertiliser, water and good management. Yes, it grows on wasteland, but it doesn’t give you any yield.”

Dr Jha says companies such as D1 Oils, the London-listed biofuels company, which has planted about 257,000 hectares of jatropha, mainly in India, moved far too early.

“What we did with this crop is that we distributed it everywhere without having any patience, before finding out which genotypes are high-yielding. If we want, we can get a good amount of profit out if it, but we need to have patience.”

D1 is also having some nasty surprises on yield. It said in 2006 that it aimed to produce 2.7 tonnes of oil per hectare from areas planted with its new E1 variety, and 1.7 tonnes of oil from normal seed. That is equivalent to about 8 tonnes and 5 tonnes of seed per hectare respectively, or 3.5kg and and 2kg a plant.

Pradip Bhar, who runs the company’s D1 Williamson Magor Bio Fuel joint venture in India’s north east, admits he has yet to achieve a fraction of that.

“Hitting 500g is the challenge,” he says. “Mortality is quite high. But if we can reach 500g in two years’ time, after that the bush will continue to grow. Our expectation is that after the fourth year we will hit 1kg. The 1.5kg mark we haven’t touched as yet.”

Those are the results from the fertile state of Assam. The yields in other, dryer states such as Jharkand and Orissa, he says, are much worse.

But he still believes D1 was right to forge ahead with early planting because it will be at least an eight-year wait before varieties with good yields on wastelands are developed. Even D1’s E1 variety is not yet available in sufficient quantities.

Mr Bhar intends to hold the area under cultivation steady at about 132,000 hectares this year. As his plantations account for more than half of D1 Oils’ Jatropha crop, the company’s goal of planting 1 million hectares by 2011 looks like a tough one. He is concentrating instead on ensuring his small contract farmers continue tending it for the two or three years needed before it becomes profitable.

This challenge is one of the reasons why Prof Shah doubts the 500,000 hectares of jatropha the Indian government estimates has been planted so far. Only last month, he unsettled an annual meeting of the universities researching jatropha and India’s National Oilseeds and Vegetable Oil Development Board by reporting that only 5,000 hectares was actually under plantation in Gujarat, half the official estimate.