Such caveats amount to unfortunate news for the biofuel industry as it seeks to battle its way out of a storm.
The surging price of petrol and diesel from fossil fuels has prompted farmers, notably in the United States and Brazil, to grow crops such as corn, soy, colza and sugar cane which are then distilled into the petrol substitute ethanol.
Partly in response to this agricultural switch from food to fuel, the price of dietary staples has blasted skyward this year, worsening hunger among the very poor and in half a dozen vulnerable countries stoking political instability.
Scientists are working hard to develop second-generation biofuels that would mainly use non-food cellulose materials, such as straw, wood and timber chips, which would be supplemented by easy-to-grow fibrous plants.
Two techniques -- one biological, the other a combination of heat and chemicals -- are being used to render this feedstock into biofuels, respectively ethanol or a diesel and kerosene substitute called BTL (Biomass to Liquids).
But the public will have to wait until 2015 for ethanol and 202O for BTL, said Xavier Montagne, deputy scientifique director at the French Institute for Oil (IFP).
Claude Roy, an interministerial official who is coordinating France's efforts in biofuels, said "the real outcome lies in the battle of the yields," a reference to the amount of fuel that is harvested compared to the energy used to produce it.
"At present, the two techniques have low energy yields. We have to double present yields to make them viable. Tripling them would be ideal," said Roy.
Such improvements can only come through research and development and economies of scale in manufacturing -- and those in turn can only come through massive investment.
For instance, the German firm Choren Industries is to build a biofuel refinery with a 200,000-tonne capacity. The cost is a billion euros (1.55 billion dollars), compared with just 40 million euros (62 million dollars) for a similar facility handling rapeseed, also called colza.
Such investments are fine -- just so long as oil prices hold up.
In many minds are memories of a false dawn 30 years ago. Investment in renewable energies surged in the late 1970s but was wrecked when, a few years later, the price of crude plummeted and oil climbed back into the saddle.
Even if next-generation biofuels will have big advantages over the present generation in terms of energy yield and non-food sources, question marks will remain.
"We will still have to use land to grow the feedstock for the biofuels, and this means there could be competition with farmland," said Roy.
Using virgin land to grow biofuels can raise big environmental concerns, and not just in the impact on biodiversity, said Bal.
One argument made for biofuels is that they contribute less carbon dioxide (CO2) to the atmosphere than oil, gas and coal, which have been dug out of the ground.
But this equation changes if the soil being used to grow crops is virgin.
"Using prairie land, or worse, destroying a forest, releases considerable quantities of CO2 that have been stored in the soil and the trees, and the outcome could be catastrophic," said Bal.
Cautioned Roy: "Even if we find the Holy Grail, biofuels will not replace oil. At best, they will be part of the range of options to diversify energy supplies."
Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)
© 2008 AFP
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