by afew
Mon Apr 7th, 2008 at 05:45:30 AM EST
UPDATE It's been pointed out in comments that I misunderstood Luis's point. This seems to be the case, and I apologise to Luis. What follows is therefore to be read as further corroboration of his argument!
This is one of those comments that got too long. It's in response to Luis de Souza's diary,
Adris Piebalgs : getting a sense of proportion. Reading that diary is essential for what follows, but, to resume, Luis argued in it that a back-of-the-envelope calculation showed that the EU could very easily produce
[NOT - Update] the biofuels needed for the EU target of 10% by 2020. He concludes:
Luis de Souza - Adris Piebalgs : getting a sense of proportion
the EU needs to allocate thirty five million (35 000 000) hectares to bio-fuels production.
I live in state that has an area of less than 9 million hectares. Germany has an area just over 35 million hectares. <...>
Good or evil? Friend or foe? This kind of wording doesn't fit in my Engeneering/Architecture dictionaries. Bio-fuels are not an option, it's all a matter of numbers.
Here goes with my reply:
The figures given here for ethanol and biodiesel production per hectare are optimistic re European yields. We don't have the production capacities of the US Corn Belt, and our maize ethanol output/ha is likely to be at the lower end of the spread, ie about 3,100-3,200 litres/ha. Vegetable oil production is also high in the estimates given in the diary: Wikipedia (article linked in diary) cites just over 1,000 litres/ha average for rapeseed, for example. (Annual production).
So the number of hectares needed would have to rise. By how much? No way of knowing, because we don't have a breakdown here of petrol/diesel and therefore of ethanol/biodiesel. But we'd be talking, on the basis of Luis's calculations, at least 40 Mha. (40 million hectares)
But that's a minor point. What really matters is: hectares of what? If it's some mix (unexplained above) of maize and rapeseed/sunflower, then here are EU 27 areas for these crops, average 2005-2007 (all figures Eurostat):
| Grain maize | 8.6 Mha |
| Rapeseed | 5 Mha |
| Sunflower | 3.6 Mha |
| Total | 17.2 Mha |
We're a long way from 40 Mha.
These crops can't be grown on just any land. They require prime arable. They also respond to heat: maize and sunflower like the warmer South, rapeseed the more temperate regions. Current land surface allocation corresponds to these requirements. Yet a look at average yields (in tonnes per hectare) is not encouraging:
| Grain maize (1) | 6.8 t/ha |
| Rapeseed | 3.1 t/ha |
| Sunflower (2) | --- |
(1) To produce industrial-level yields, maize needs irrigation. 6.8 t/ha is an average of irrigated surface and non-irrigated. To produce over 3,000 litres of ethanol per hectare would call for yields of 10 t/ha and more. Therefore, very considerable expansion of agricultural irrigation at a time when water resources are more and more at a premium and agricultural use is increasingly criticised as wasteful and unsustainable.
(Note concerning the map of Europe posted by Luis: Germany currently plants only 0.4 Mha of grain maize... The climate is, you know, a vital limiting factor.)
(2) Sunflower has suffered of late from summer over-heat and drought, so that it's often left in the field because harvesting costs > product. This may explain the absence of yield data (though I'm not sure of that). Yields are however generally lower than rapeseed. Imo, sunflower is unlikely to be promoted as a major industrial feedstock, though it may be locally useful (farmers using the oil to run farm equipment).
At this point, a reminder: current production of these crops goes almost entirely to other uses than biofuel. Grain maize, for example, goes for 80% to animal feed. Rapeseed and sunflower make oil for human consumption. Switching from these uses to biofuel production would mean finding replacements.
Even were we to find them (where? imports?), we would still fall far short of the area needed to produce the 10% biofuels target. And it's not simply a matter of decreeing that all we have to do is plough up some more land and get on with it. Once again prime arable is needed, in suitable regions climatewise; it must be industrially exploitable (ie easy mechanisation and transport, close enough to industrial facilities); in the case of maize, irrigation is necessary.
So will we find another 22 million hectares of prime arable (with a very major tranche of new irrigation facilities)? Will we find replacements for all the crops the use of which we displace in doing so? And all this in only twelve years?
Or will we settle for importing large volumes of sugar-cane ethanol and palm oil in order to reach the Commission's 10% target? In other words, supporting deforestation and unsustainable monocultures in tropical regions, while maintaining our own fuel dependence on outside sources at world energy prices?
Luis de Souza: Adris Piebalgs : getting a sense of proportion
...it's all a matter of numbers.
Not in my view. It's a matter of the soil, the lie of the land, water, climate, energy from the sun. Real things.
