by afew
Thu Dec 21st, 2006 at 08:59:40 AM EST
Last summer, when looking here at ET at biofuels for the European Commission Biofuels Consultation, we concluded increased biofuel production in Europe would fairly quickly lead to competition for arable land with food uses of the same crops, particularly grains. A real-life example now comes from China (see yesterday's Salon where I excerpted an IPS article that says (with a couple of rearrangements on my part) this:
China's biofuel industry is booming thanks to voracious demand for energy to power the country's high-flying economy. Applying modernised versions of ancient chemical processes to convert crops and oils into energy sources, Chinese entrepreneurs have created a profitable "green business" with plenty of room to grow.
China has been encouraging the production of biofuel such as ethanol and methane from renewable resources to reduce the country's growing dependence on imported oil. Once an exporter, China now imports at least 43 percent of its oil supply.
But worried over surging crop prices China is now clamping down on the use of corn and other edible grains for producing biofuel. While it wants to support the growth of alternative energy sources, Beijing says the issue of national food security should take precedence over the country's green agenda. <...>
"We have a principle with biofuel: it should neither impact the people's grain consumption, nor should it compete with grain crops for cultivated land," the People's Daily quoted Yang Jian, director of the development planning department under the Agriculture Ministry, as saying.
It's interesting that China is using grains, especially corn (maize) as biofuel feedstock:
Government officials estimate that corn contributes around three-fourths of the raw material used for making ethanol in China. Output of ethanol fuel is projected at 1.3 million tonnes this year, according to the China Daily. Experts however, say that output from private and public producers this year may reach five million tonnes. <...>
Industrial processing in China consumed 23 million tonnes of corn in 2005, an annual increase of 16.5 percent from 2001, while corn production increased at the slower rate of five percent during the same period, according to a circular released this week by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China's top economic body.
This makes the Chinese experience more easily transposable to Europe, where grains, particularly corn, are expected to supply most of the future ramped-up production of ethanol, (and also to the US, where corn-based ethanol is, for the moment, the star). Like Europe, China aims at food self-sufficiency. Conflict between that aim and the aim of energy security (promotion of indigenous energy sources) seems inevitable. You can't have your cake and eat it – or rather, eat your cake and run your car on it. At some point, either you import corn, or you import ethanol:
Experts warn that if ethanol production continues to be corn-based, China will be forced to import the crop by 2008. Relying on crop imports is a sensitive issue as the government policy supports food self-sufficiency for the sake of national security.
"The excessive growth of corn processing has resulted in scarce feed for livestock and affected the development of animal husbandry. Some main producing areas are even considering importing corn," said the NDRC circular.
However, it's true China has difficulties we don't have:
While rivalry between food and fuel producers for grains is not limited to China, the problem is particularly acute here because of the country's low per-capita arable land to feed its vast population.
The grain crop is expected to hit a record 490 million tons this year, the third straight year of bumper harvests but Chinese planners are worried that fast-shrinking farming land could affect grain supply in the near future. Arable land is said to have shrunk by 8 million hectares between 1999 and 2005.
China's arable per-capita was low even before the shrinkage referred to here. The People's Daily discusses it in a 2004 article, giving 123m hectares as the country's arable surface. With a population of 1.3 bn, that makes for a little under 10 ares (0.1 ha) per person.
For an idea of relative per-capita arable land, see this graph based on 1997 statistics:
A considerable area of China, however, is in warm latitudes. Sweet sorghum is a serious contender as a feedstock for ethanol, but:
Chinese producers however, continue to make ethanol from corn because the mass planting of non-grain feedstock as cassava and sorghum has yet to be implemented on a large scale due to the lack of suitable farming technologies.
So they're not yet ready to get round to it. The lesson for Europe is that we only have maize and wheat (and a little sugar-beet) for ethanol. No high-energy, warm-latitude crops can be brought in to "save" us. As Migeru has several times pointed out, Europe is situated to the North. The US has a great deal of land south of the southernmost parts of Europe (as a rough guide, the 40th parallel goes through Madrid and Philadelphia). China reaches even further into warmer climes (Canton is on the Tropic of Cancer, which is south of the Florida Keys).
No encouragement here, then, for Europe's biofuel-from-crops supporters. Unless global warming speeds up and we start growing sugar cane in Lower Saxony...
