Title photo: Fifteen trucks operating in the Buckeye, Arizona distribution center near Phoenix, will be converted to run on reclaimed grease (FuelTM), made with the waste brown cooking grease from Walmart stores.

Biofuel is produced mainly from crop plants, grown in a few months, harvested, and used to make fuel for cars and lorries. Plants take in carbon dioxide for growth which is then released back into the atmosphere when the biofuel is burnt. CO2 in = CO2 out, more or less. As a result, biofuels carry a carbon-neutral tag and while not entirely true, they are infinitely preferably to fossil fuels.

The two most common biofuels, often called 'first generation', are bioethanol and biodiesel, the former mainly produced in Brazil, the latter in the EU.

Figure 1

Biodiesel is normally a blend of fossil fuel and oil from plants. The EU consumes around 11 million tonnes of biodiesel per year in an effort to reduce the carbon emissions from cars and lorries. The question now being asked is where exactly does the source oil come from.

Biodiesel can be made from vegetable oils (most of it is) such as soybean, canola, palm, and sunflower oils. Included in this list is used cooking oil - UCO, much of it used chip fat. The amount of biofuel made from UCO in the EU has been increasing by 40% each year since 2014. There simply isn't the volume of UCO to sustain this production. As a result, more than half the UCO used in Europe is now imported. It might be a waste material in Europe but in Malaysia and Indonesia it's used to feed livestock. So with what did Malaysia replace the 90 million litres of UCO it exported to the UK and Ireland in 2019? Environmental groups have collected a considerable body of evidence which points to both Malaysia and Indonesia turning to palm oil as a cheap replacement for UCO. With increased demand for palm oil comes deforestation in both countries, a topic covered in some detail in the deforestation section.

There is now huge pressure from developed nations as they seek to reduce carbon emissions from fossil-fuel transport. China used to import vast amounts of soybeans from Brazil, demand that caused a rapid expansion of Brazil's land area given over to soybean cultivation. Now China have capped its soybean imports and Brazil have refocused on using its soybean oil to make biofuel. Just as in Asia, Brazilian tropical forest is being cleared to grow soybeans to meet US and European demand. This forest clearance adds hugely to the biofuel carbon emission totals but these are not included in national carbon emission data.

T&E, one of Europe’s leading advocates for clean transport & energy, did not mince its words in a press release back in 2021:

The Renewable Energy Directive (RED) was introduced in 2010, setting a 10% renewable energy target for transport by 2020 for each member state. This has driven up demand for cheap crop-based biodiesel, such as palm and soy oil, which is mainly sourced from Asia and South America. It is likely that roughly 4 million hectares of forests have subsequently been razed, destroying an estimated 10% of the world’s remaining orangutan habitats.

Laura Buffet, energy director at T&E, said: “10 years of this ‘green’ fuels law and what have we got to show for it? Rampant deforestation, habitats wiped out and worse emissions than if we had used polluting diesel instead. A policy that was supposed to save the planet is actually trashing it. We cannot afford another decade of this failed policy. We need to break the biofuels monopoly in renewable transport and put electricity at the centre of the RED instead.”

There's no getting away from the fact that the economic benefit to developing countries of supplying the developed world with oils for biofuel is offset by environmental damage. Moreover, the corn, wheat, sugarcane, soybean, rapeseed and sunflowers used to produce the oils is also food for the resident population and feed for their livestock. There is concern over the impact of biofuel demand on the prices for these commodities. So....the European Commission has officially approved a measure to phase out palm oil-based biofuel by 2030. But while the move has angered major palm oil producers, it hasn’t entirely pleased environmental activists either. Why? Because phase-out doesn’t mean a ban on palm oil in biofuels. EU member states will still be able to import and use palm oil-based biodiesel, but it will no longer be considered a renewable fuel or be eligible for the attendant subsidies. Fudge.

The other first generation biofuel is bioethanol, a success story in Brazil from its inception back in 1975. Sugar from sugar cane was fermented into alcohol (ethanol) and, using flex fuel technology, Brazilian cars were able to run on any mix of ethanol and gasoline. By 2011, 83% of cars sold in Brazil were able to use this ethanol-gasoline mix. In the same year, Brazilian ethanol exports reached two billion litres, with principle markets in the United States, the European Union and Japan. Glass definitely half full. Recently, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a statement classifying sugarcane ethanol as an advanced biofuel as its use as a fuel results in a 61% reduction in CO2 emissions compared to gasoline. This is because, like biodiesel, the CO2 released from the burning of ethanol in vehicles was absorbed via photosynthesis by the sugarcane plants as they grew. Glass very full? Not so.

Unfortunately, due to a lack of enforcement of national laws aimed at preserving native vegetation, the expansion of farmland for sugarcane production over recent decades has led to wide-scale deforestation in Brazil. Land currently used for sugarcane plantations is mainly located in areas that were once occupied by the Atlantic Forest. Today, less than 13% of the original forest remains intact and this is now protected by law.

Figure 2

The satellite photo above of Brazil shows the Amazon rainforest centre to top left, and what remains of the Atlantic forest enclosed by the yellow line. Very little dark green forest is left.

In recent years, the US has overtaken Brazil as the world's leading producer of bioethanol.

Renewable Fuels Association

The US Energy Information Administration recently reported that capacity to produce biofuels increased 7% in the United States during 2023, reaching 24 billion gallons per year at the start of 2024, led by a 44% increase in renewable diesel and other biofuels. Other biofuels include renewable heating oil, renewable jet fuel (also known as sustainable aviation fuel), and renewable naphtha and gasoline.

Given continued state and federal tax incentives, regulatory policies, plant expansions, and projected new plant construction, U.S. biofuels production capacity is expected to continue increasing.

Overall, biofuels present a confusing picture. On the one hand, they are produced from renewable sources which can be grown in almost any country, and release far less CO2 than fossil fuels. On the other hand, as the biofuel market grows, the demand for land to grow the source crops - soybean and sugarcane - will inevitably result in continued deforestation while food crops get diverted to biofuel production.

There are a number of second generation biofuels which use non-food biomass sources like algae and switchgrass. These pose less competition with food crops, have a higher energy efficiency, and the potential for a more sustainable and renewable fuel source overall. However, they are unlikely in the near future to provide a serious alternative to petrol or diesel. Electrification of transport is still a huge piece in the 'avoid +3°C' jigsaw.

Title Photo: qqBy Walmart from Bentonville, USA - Walmart’s Grease Fuel Truck,