More than a quarter (26%) of the planet's arable land will have to be devoted to fuel production by 2020 in order to meet current biofuel targets, sending food prices into the stratosphere, alternative energy experts have warned.
Commodity prices have already rocketed in recent months and will rise still further unless biofuel targets are scrapped, said Erich Dumelin, formerly at Unilever and now an independent consultant. "Unless governments review current policies and targets, the substantial price rises observed recently will not only continue and add substantially to our food bill but will have an even more dramatic effect on the nutritional state of less privileged regions."
Due to their limited availability and low efficiency in environmental terms, "neither biomass raw materials nor land suitable for food should be used for fuel production", claimed Dumelin, who was speaking at a confectionery conference run by the UK's Food and Drink Federation.
"Fuel production should focus on the higher yielding and environmentally more efficient 'second-generation' biofuels, the non-food cellulose based biomass and organic waste. Targets should be postponed until these technologies are more advanced."
It was now becoming clear that companies and governments rushed into first generation biofuels (esterification for biodiesel; fermentation for bioethanol) without doing their sums properly, claimed Dumelin.
"People were told that if crude oil prices went beyond $60 a barrel, the biofuel companies could make money without subsidies. The fallacy was that they assumed that the prices of their raw materials [maize and rapeseed] would stay where they were! The plants are also too small to be cost competitive. The second generation is a completely different technology, and uses the total biomass, which makes it a lot more productive."
His comments came as DuPont and Danisco subsidiary Genencor launched a joint venture to make ethanol from cellulose. However, it will probably be three years before they are able to produce it in commercial quantities.