Pavan Sukhdev : “Il faut donner un prix à la biodiversité” (Le Monde)

Original here, Portuguese translation here. Although not related directly to the past few posts I have made (agriculture and biofuels in Brazil), it has a clore relation to my object of studies (agriculture in Brazil). Therefore, I am blogging.

Just for the title, “It is necessary to put a price on biodiversity”, it was already worth reading the article.

From that one little quote mr. Pavan Sukhdev already told us why the Kyoto Protocol works: because of the money generated from the carbon credit market. This is the key: a market was created and it is worth money to protect nature. Although I do agree that it is a lovely concept to protect nature and biodiversity, I also strongly believe that people need benefits to do certain things.

So, why don’t make the biodiversity valuable? For instance, if research can be developed from plants that we don’t even know they exist, then this should be worth something. If it is worth something, then it should be protected and taken care of. As simple as that.

This quote will stay in Portuguese. I tried to translate it but I am afraid that an English version from the Portuguese translation made from French will be too far from the original quote:

Não se trata de frear o desenvolvimento a que diversos países aspiram, mas devemos ter consciência das conseqüências de certas opções. O custo do desmatamento não se limita às perdas de receitas da exploração florestal. Acrescentando o desaparecimento dos recursos genéticos explorados pela medicina e o papel crucial que a floresta tem na regulação do clima, na distribuição de água, na prevenção das inundações e da erosão… o custo chega a centenas de bilhões de dólares. É preciso dar um preço à natureza para poder protegê-la.

Lean, green and not mean (The Economist)

Pedro Doria today drew my attention to an interesting article that outlines a few pros and cons of Brazilian ethanol. I already left a comment there but I also decided to write here. Cutting to the chase, let’s attack the numbers:

1. The petrol prices in Brazil haven’t seen a raise for the past three years. A side effect is that the ethanol industry in Brazil has to keep being competitive facing oil prices of three years ago, although the demand is growing in Brazil. Estimates from Jan ‘03 point to a production cost of BRL 0,52 per ethanol litre in Brazil, against BRL 0,78 per gasoline litre. (Conversion made using the average exchange rate of BRL 3,3734 for Jan ‘03 and a USD 24 oil barrel. Although old, these are the easiest/latest numbers I have handy.)
2. Regarding Brazil and exports, the biggest problem we face is infrastructure. There are no roads to transport the sugarcane from the fieds to the nearby plants; no pipelines to transport the ethanol from the plants to the ports; and no ports to export ethanol from Brazil to overseas.
3. I believe the Wilson Center study mentioned is this one. Already printed but not yet read.
4. Regarding ambiental issues, I have already written about it.

The social issues, in fact, are the biggest challenge for Brazil. There are two big issues: social rights to the rural, poor workers and the huge unemployment that is about to come from implementing new machinery on sugar cane fields.

Drivers of Food Price Increases: Is it fair to blame biofuels? (New Energy Finance)

Again, the food vs. fuel debate. I consider this as a very important issue, since the poor suffer a lot more from slight changes on food prices.

“Drivers of Food Price Increases: Is it fair to blame biofuels?” (from New Energy Finance) is a study to which I haven’t had full access. However, after reading some data, one might be leaning to defend biofuels more strongly.

I still plan to go deeper on this subject over the next few days. For now, two quotes. First, the corporate one:

What should the biofuel industry do? First it must work harder to speak with a unified voice and to use that to communicate the fact that biofuels have been only one factor in the recent food price increases. Second, it must strive to clarify the true environmental impact of biofuels and to eliminate the use of feedstocks that have a negative impact. Third, it must accelerate the development of technologies that use waste or non-food crops for biofuel production. (Michael Liebreich)

And now, from a developing country point of view (same page, on comments box):

The contribution of biofuels till date, in primary energy mix is confined to 5 – 6% only, that needs to be raised, while containing escalation in food prices, and sustaining availability of food stuff for the rural and poor masses. (Dr. Jagdish P. N. Giri)

(Bold and underlilned parts by me.)

Although the second quote’s subject is approached on the third step suggested by Mr. Liebreich, Dr. Giri emphasizes “the rural and poor masses”. I consider to be important to see biofuels fully developed, as much as giving those people a chance to improve their lives. The key is to make  biofuels more than just a new excuse to dump subsidies to American and European farmers.

It’s Corn vs. Soybeans in a Biofuels Debate (NY Times)

Original article here.

The study cited on this story affirms that the fuel vs. food debate is something we should be concerned about. Indeed, as we previously saw here, most of the current generation of biofuels under production in the US is based on transforming corn grain in ethanol, or soybean in biodiesel. Always good to mention that the sugarcane ethanol made in Brazil makes an exception to this rule, where currently 0,5% of its culturable land fuels 40% of its cars. (Strategic Affairs Office’s Biocombustíveis, October 2004, and FAO’s “Bioenergy, food security and susteinability – towards an international framework“, June 2008.)

In fact, I just ran into this study from the Brazilian government. Although it was published 4 years ago, it has interesting data on Brazilian effort to produce ethanol and biodiesel. I will publish something in the next few days, since it suits neatly the food vs. fuel debate.

My final comment will be a quote from this text:

David Morris, vice president of the nonprofit Institute for Local Self-Reliance, which promotes local generation and ownership of energy sources, does not dispute the report’s major findings but questions their significance. “Its primary findings are neither new nor controversial,” Morris says. “The net energy of soybean-derived diesel is much better than corn-derived ethanol, and cellulosic material promises to be better than both.”

All parties consulted agree that the future for biofuels lies in the ability to convert largely nonfood-based cellulosic materials to fuel. In a follow-up study published in the 8 December 2006 issue of Science, Tilman, Hill, and fellow University of Minnesota researcher Clarence Lehman continued the search for such a crop, identifying low-input high-diversity mixtures of native grasses that provide more usable energy, fewer greenhouse gas emissions, and less agrichemical pollution per hectare than either corn grain ethanol or soybean biodiesel. This study contends that these low-input high-diversity biofuels can be produced on agriculturally degraded lands and thus will not displace food production or cause loss of biodiversity via habitat destruction.

“Producing biofuel for transportation is a fledgling industry,” says Tilman. “Corn ethanol and soybean diesel are successful first-generation biofuels. The next step is a biofuel crop that requires low chemical and energy inputs and can give us greater energy and environmental returns.”

(Bold parts by me.)

Getting Serious About Biofuels (Science)

The author, Steven Koonin, points out several important issues for developing the biofuels and making them a globally viable solution to the energy issue. (As he well observes at the footnote, “Brazil is a singular counterexample, where favorable agricultural conditions and a flexible processing infrastructure allow the majority of the country’s road transport to be powered economically with cane-derived ethanol.”)

This is an important remark.

Since the 1970’s Brazil already estimated that only 2% of its soil would be necessary to grow enough ethanol for its entire car fleet. Nowadays, 45% of the cars in Brazil are running on ethanol and only 1% of the Brazilian lands have sugarcane fields.

Mr. Koonin’s one-page editorial is a fast, elegant way of showing today’s challenges for the biofuel industry. Since it can be accessed from any computer, I am also pasting it after the jump.

Azúcar en el depósito (La Vanguardia)

Spanish original here (title: “Sugar in the deposit”); Portuguese translation here (title: Sugarcane and ethanol are becoming Brazil’s symbols”). As far as I know, no english version available. Sorry!

El país del carnaval, la samba, el fútbol, el café y la caipiriña tiene ya otro emblema por bandera: la caña de azúcar. Aunque los portugueses introdujeron este cultivo en el país hace ya más de 500 años, no ha sido hasta hace relativamente poco que ésta se ha convertido en la gran esperanza económica del país, gracias a su buen rendimiento para la producción de biocombustibles, concretamente etanol.

The journalist, Ms. Lorena Farràs Pérez, traced a quick glance on today’s Brazilian ethanol market. She has sensitive eyes in comparing other well-known Brazilian symbols: samba, soccer, coffee, caipirinha…. And, now, sugarcane. Nevertheless, she commited a small mistake right at the first paragraph by saying that sugar cane has been planted for over 500 years in Brazil — its culture in Brazil actually began in the 1530’s. Since her numbers will be outdated within a few months (as everything surrounding this growing ethanol market), I will make use of her mistake to trace a brief history about sugar cane in Brazil after the jump.

Deepwater oil fields are a final frontier (USA TODAY)

Original story here, Portuguese translation here. Great quote!

The increasing prominence of deepwater discoveries such as Tahiti illustrates a core truth behind the steadily rising cost of fuel: All of the easy oil has been found or used. Now, drillers must navigate 4,000 feet of water and an additional 20,000 feet of sand, rock and salt to find what the Earth has left.

“People back home don’t think about that, but that’s 5 miles! Back when I started in this business, if you went 2 miles, that was a great thing. You got your name on a plaque,” says Buddy Horton, a safety consultant at DC International of Lafayette, La., and a 32-year industry veteran.

The more expensive the oil gets, the more alternatives are raised.

This story focuses on one of these alternatives: this “new” oil source is mainly found in Gulf of Mexico, the Brazilian coast and West Africa. It won’t make much to reduce current expensive fuel prices, but it will make two things: (1) allow people to keep on using oil and (2) encourage R&D for new energy alternatives.

Today Chevron drills 9% of its oil from the ocean; their goal for 2015 is 25%. Interesting numbers for those interested to work on this industry!

Personal notes after the jump.