Scientists claim first-generation biofuels here to stay

The biofuel industry should step up efforts to enhance yields from energy crops as the most cost-effective means of increasing production and delivering deeper carbon cuts.

That is the advice from a leading biofuel expert at the Climate Congress conference in Copenhagen, who yesterday warned that with demand for first-generation biofuels likely to continue to grow over the coming decades, the onus was on the industry to identify ways of increasing production without expanding the amount of agricultural land it requires for feedstock.

Professor Claus Felby of the University of Copenhagen, a leading expert in biomass energy, told delegates that while biofuels only accounted for one per cent of global agricultural land at present, it was indisputable that using land to grow energy crops had an impact on food supplies and deforestation, and as such biofuel scientists should aim for no further expansion of the agricultural land supporting the industry.

"[We] need to focus on improving agricultural and forestry [practices]," he said, adding that average yields for many crops are just a fifth of record yields, suggesting enormous room for improvement.

Felby said research had shown that while record yields of corn top 19 tonnes per hectare, global average yields stood at just 4.6 tonnes. "It's not biofuels, it's agriculture itself that has a big problem," he argued, adding that enhancing crop yields would prove the most cost-effective means of enhancing biofuel's environmental benefits and limiting its impact on food supplies. "If you double the yield, you halve the area of land you need."

Increasing use of fertilisers and pesticides to bolster yields is unsustainable, according to Felby, but he insisted that there were other avenues open to biofuel scientists seeking to increase productivity. "Simple breeding, without even using genetic modification, will take us a long way," he said. "We have tripled seed yields since 1960, but now we need to focus on productivity, on plant photosynthesis."

Felby predicted that selective breeding of plants with the best rates of photosynthesis could increase the amount of energy they capture by 50 per cent, significantly increasing biofuel yields from any given plant.

This focus on the yield of existing energy crops such as sugar cane and corn is necessary, Felby argued, because with the biofuel market already equivalent to three to four per cent of global gasoline production, it will be decades before second-generation biofuels made from non-food crops replace first-generation biofuels to any large extent.

"Algae looks really interesting as we could have 100 per cent decoupling of food and bioenergy," he said. "But it is going to take 20 years [for it to be available in large quantities]."

According to Felby's research, first-generation biofuels can still deliver CO2 savings of between 30 and 80 per cent on fossil fuel alternatives if they are managed properly, while second-generation bioethanol can deliver savings of between 60 and 80 per cent, and biodiesel, such as that being tried by a number of airlines, can also deliver 80 per cent savings.

He insisted that despite calls from some quarters for a moratorium on biofuels, the technology had a critical role to play in the low-carbon economy. "How are you going to fly a Boeing 747 on steam and batteries?" he asked. "It will not be possible."