The Hindu Business Line : Bio-fuels: Future beckons, present stalls

In the Indian context, the key to the knotty problem of meeting the growing energy demands without jeopardising the food security of the masses lies in the starchy roots of tapioca.

The future of life on earth is going to become difficult because of climate change. It impacts not just specific countries or continents but the planet as a whole. An alarming threat of this magnitude calls for a multi-pronged approach to, one, reverse it and, two, mitigate its impact.

Bio-fuels such as ethanol, produced from fermenting plant biomass, and bio-diesel, from trans-esterification of vegetable or animal fat, offer pragmatic solutions to the vexing issue of greenhouse gases that are the by-product of burning fossil fuels. Yet, even these bio-fuels are not without their share of legitimate concerns, especially in the long term.

For start, what impact will making of bio-fuels from plant sources have on human food needs? If more land is to be brought under the plough to cater to increased demand for biomass, whither the already deep conflict between the needs of conserving the environment and the incessant denuding of forests to meet growing human food needs?

Does biotechnology have a role in enhancing production of biomass or in improving the fermentation efficiency of microbes?

FEELING THE PINCH

The bio-fuel boom is just beginning to happen but has already led to the release in the European Union of intervention stocks of grain to meet additional demand. It has pushed up the cost of staples in Mexico where skyrocketing tortilla prices have sparked angry protests.

In the neighbouring US, the presidential slogan of "ten in twenty" exhorting the reduction of petrol consumption by 20 per cent in 10 years is a major gamble.

The new imperative to target 7.5 billion gallons of ethanol production for transport fuel by 2012, covering five per cent of projected US fuel consumption, would take away 40 per cent of US corn (maize) production.

To meet this additional demand, the market estimates that another eight million acres of maize must be sown this spring, taken away largely from soya; not a wholly satisfactory recourse.

Ironically, even if every single acre of corn in the US were to be put to ethanol production it would barely meet 14 per cent of that country's projected fuel consumption.

Globally, the ripple effects are already being felt in the increased cost of food-items and feed that use corn as an ingredient.

Price increases are inevitable across a swathe of products, from soft-drinks and processed foods, to corn chips and breakfast cereals that use corn products such as high-fructose syrup, as also of soybean oil and wheat flour.

Dairy, poultry and meat products would become dearer as producers would be forced to pay more for feed made with corn, soya, wheat and other crops.

PAST REVISITED

The fact that India recently imported seven million tonnes of wheat to meet the country's nutritional requirements revived memories of an unpleasant past.

Yet that this should be happening in an era of apparent plenty is worrying, especially when not a grain has been diverted for ethanol production. Thus, the reasons to resist the lure of grain ethanol as a bio-fuel are many.

Compared to grain alcohol, cellulosic ethanol produced from biomass crops and logging residues, the other major biofuel of promise, has a positive energy balance, about 5:1, stores carbon and can be produced from crops that in fact aid soil conservation.

Likewise, certain algae are theoretically the most efficient sources of bio-diesel. But both cellulosic ethanol and algal bio-fuel are decidedly some years away from becoming commercially viable.

TAPIOCA SOLUTION

All is not lost. In the Indian context, the key to the knotty problem of meeting the growing energy demands without jeopardising the food security of the masses lies in the starchy roots of tapioca, a food widely cultivated in parts of Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

Offshore agricultural and ethanol production centres, unencumbered by limitations of land mass for agricultural activities and import of the ethanol into the country, would well be the out-of-the-box solution to the looming fuel challenge in the short term and an opportunity in the long term.

The waiver of excise duty on bio-diesel in the latest Budget is a timely fillip to pursuing this option in this nascent industry of national importance.

May the bio-fuel gold rush begin with some serious investors jumping in for the long haul.

(The author, President of Greenergy, can be contacted at reenthumb@vsnl.com)

More Stories on : Non-conventional Energy

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Bio-fuels: Future beckons, present stalls

Manufacturing growth

The evolution of `management consultant'

Exchangeable bonds — for control and funds

Meetings are indispensable

Education metropia

Pedro Malan Committee Report — Counselling the Bretton Woods twins

Creative accounting can thrive on gaps in M&A standards

Infrastructure upgradation