Biofuels offer an appropriate response to the depletion of the world’s oil resources, while helping combat the greenhouse effect. In France, professionals from the sugar beet industry are redoubling their efforts to achieve their ambitious goals.
A petrol shortage around the corner? Faced with a seemingly endless increase in demand, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has predicted that demand for oil will increase from 83.5 million barrels a day in 2004 to 121 Mb/day in 2030.
As a direct consequence, although the price of a barrel of oil stabilised in 2005 at around 60 dollars, after an unprecedented peak in the summer of 2005 at 70 dollars, a rise in prices appears to be as inevitable as the depletion of fossil fuels.
The question is therefore no longer “how high will prices rise” but “how long will the oil last”? Taking into consideration the doubts surrounding the key statistics and the inability to check the estimates released by OPEC countries, an increasing number of geo-petroleum experts are predicting an oil peak - a peak in world production followed by a decline in stocks - between 2013 and 2037 (1).
Limiting oil dependency and pollution
As it reaches its end, the oil era has revealed its limits, both in terms of our dependence on fossil fuel and the environment. Europe imports 50% of its energy needs and generate 14% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Transport, which represents 32% of total consumption and is dependent to a critical extent on imported oil (80%), is responsible for almost 30% of carbon dioxide emissions. For two centuries, in fact, a constantly increasing level of hydrocarbon-based greenhouse gases (CO2) in the earth’s atmosphere has led to global warming.
We must act now
Aware of this risk, 157 countries agreed in Kyoto in 1997 to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 8% by 2010. Faced with the threat of climate change, the world leaders who gathered at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference in December 2009 were unable to put aside their conflicting short-term interests to agree on a global policy based on objective scientific findings as a follow-up to the Kyoto Protocol.
Set against this background, the recourse to renewable energies is as necessary as it is vital. Because they help reduce transport pollution, biofuels feature among the range of alternative solutions on offer. Speeding up their growth has become a strategic challenge of global proportions.
A positive ecological footprint, ambitious goals
In just a few years, Europe has moved from setting out its objectives to achieving its goals. In 2003, a European directive imposed a minimum proportion of biofuels to be placed on the market with relation to petrol and diesel. The targets were set at 2% by 2005 and 5.75% by 2010.
It also authorizes Member States to grant a partial or total tax exemption to biofuels because, due to their current inability to compete with conventional fuels (2), increased production is only feasible through the use of incentives. Given this context, the French authorities have developed a new energy policy in which biofuels play a major role.
An informed debate
However, before any action was taken, it was important to perform an analysis of the environmental impact of eco-fuel production. Its detractors main arguments are based on the fact that large-scale farming could deplete soils and increase water table pollution by plant protection productions, while the industrial process could generate an increase in air pollution.
In 2002, an independent study performed at the request of Ademe (3) and the French Ministry of Industry, showed, on the contrary, that it had a very positive ecological footprint. It has been demonstrated that a hectare of ethanol beets eliminates the annual CO2 emissions of ten cars, and that burning a litre of ethanol rather than a litre of petrol reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 60%. The environmental and energy footprint of biofuels has therefore not been called into question.
(1) Source: Le Monde 2, 30 September 2005.
(2) Production costs make biofuels a competitive energy once the price of oil reaches between 75 and 90 dollars a barrel. Source: French interministerial mission on the optimisation of support mechanisms for the biofuel sector, report of 20 September 2005.
(3) French Environment and Energy Management Agency