Yahoo News 16 Oct 09;
NAIROBI (AFP) – The use of biofuels as a source of clean energy may lead to higher carbon emissions, but can also yield significant cuts if production is properly managed, the UN Environment Programme said Friday.
As such, governments should assess energy needs, effects on climate, land and water use as well as agriculture if biofuel projects are to be beneficial.
Citing a report by its Panel for Sustainable Resource Management, the UN body noted that Brazil's biofuel production can lead to between 70 and more than 100 percent emission reduction when substituted for petrol.
But some biofuels -- produced for example from oil palms grown in deforested tropical peatlands -- can be responsible for a rise in greenhouse gas emissions of up to 2,000 percent compared with fossil fuels, as a result of carbon releases from the soil.
"The debate whether it is good or evil is not a rational one. Like all technologies, biofuels represent both opportunities and challenges," UNEP's director Achim Steiner said.
"The way in which biofuels are produced matters in determining whether they are leading to more or less greenhouse gas emissions."
Biofuel's green credentials depend on whether it is based on crops or production residues and waste, the latter being more environmentally friendly, said the report entitled: "Towards Sustainable Production and Use of Resources: Assessing Biofuels."
For instance, Brazil's sugarcane-to-ethanol production is considered beneficial because it uses cane waste known as bagasse to power the processing and also generates electricity for the national grid.
Palm oil biodiesel on the other hand can reduce emissions when compared to fossil fuels by 80 percent, but if it is grown on land from cleared tropical forests, greenhouse gas emissions can rise 800 percent, or higher.
Up to 34 percent of arable land worldwide would be needed -- with the current technology -- to produce 10 percent of the world's transport fuels, the report added.
Critics say biofuel production eats up chunks of arable land needed to feed the world population for negligible carbon emission cuts.
The report called for a "reconsideration of current biofuel mandates, targets and quota in order to limit the demand to levels which can be sustainably supplied."
"It is also a choice about how humanity best manages its finite land bank and balances a range of competing interests in a world of six billion people, rising to over nine billion by 2050," Steiner said.
