Friday, May 30, 2008

Food Report Criticizes Biofuel Policies

posted by dustin mulvaney


May 30, 2008
Food Report Criticizes Biofuel Policies
By ANDREW MARTIN

Agriculture Secretary Edward T. Schafer is preparing to walk into a buzzsaw of criticism over American biofuels policy when he meets with world leaders to discuss the global food crisis next week.

Mr. Schafer took the offensive at a press conference on Thursday that discussed the food summit, planned for Rome. He said an analysis by the Agriculture Department had determined that biofuel production was responsible for only 2 to 3 percent of the increase in global food prices, while biofuels had reduced consumption of crude oil by a million barrels a day.

"We think that policy-wise in the United States of America — and certainly in the rest of the world — as we see the price of oil and petroleum escalate dramatically beyond anyone's imagination, that one of the ways to deal with that is to produce biofuels which are renewables, better for the environment and help lower that cost," he said.

Mr. Schafer's remarks came as ethanol and biofuels are coming under increasing criticism from foreign leaders and members of Congress, as grocery prices climb in the developed world and malnutrition and hunger threaten to spread in the poorest nations.

Just hours before his comments, a major report was released in Paris that urged countries to reconsider biofuels policies in the wake of soaring food prices.

"The energy security, environmental and economic benefits of biofuels production based on agricultural commodity feed stocks are at best modest, and sometimes even negative," says the report, prepared by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. "Alternative approaches may be considered that offer potentially greater benefits with less of the unintended market impact."

The Agriculture Department's own longtime chief economist, Keith Collins, who retired in January, said that ethanol was the "foot on the accelerator" of corn demand — an essential feed for animals, as well as a part of many diets — and merited renewed debate. He said Congressional mandates for ethanol would require farmers to grow more corn for conversion to biofuel, at the expense of feed corn and other food crops.

"You're building in tremendous increase in demand," said Mr. Collins, who emphasized that he was not necessarily against ethanol. "It's an increase that is going to feed into food prices."

The United Nations report, the global agriculture outlook through 2017, said prices for farm crops will remain substantially higher over the next decade because of fundamental changes in demand, though they will gradually decline from current highs.

Because the recent spike in crop and food prices has been caused in part by temporary factors like drought, the report predicted that prices should decrease as weather conditions return to normal and crop yields improve.

"At least we hope they are temporary," said Angel Gurria, secretary-general of the O.E.C.D., alluding to the potential impact of lasting climate change on agricultural production.

In addition to reviewing ethanol policies, the report said governments should reconsider trade policies like export bans that do not allow farmers to take advantage of higher global prices for agriculture commodities.

The report also encouraged countries that have balked at allowing genetically modified crops to reconsider their use as a way to improve yields.

The expected causes of higher-than-average prices during the next decade include a doubling of biofuel production, higher fuel costs that increase the cost of producing crops and transporting food, and greater demand for food and animal feed in richer developing countries where incomes are rising, the report says.

Prices for vegetable oils are expected to remain the highest, 80 percent above the average from 1998 to 2007; wheat, corn and skim milk powder are anticipated to be 40 to 60 percent higher; sugar, 30 percent; and beef and pork, about 20 percent. Biofuel production should account for about a third of the expected increases in prices for vegetable oils and grains.

But the authors of the report cautioned that crop prices may be more volatile because of less predictable weather patterns, speculators in agricultural futures markets and low levels of stockpiles of grains.

The projected increases in crop prices would have the most serious impact in poor countries.

The authors of the report encouraged increased investment in agriculture research and outreach programs in the least developed countries after years of declining support.

"Agricultural development was not given sufficient priority over the last decades, and its importance was underestimated," said Jacques Diouf, secretary-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

In a related matter, the World Bank on Thursday announced that it would increase spending on agriculture and food programs to $6 billion in the coming fiscal year, which begins on July 1, up from $4 billion.

The funds include $800 million that has already been earmarked for Africa and an additional $1.2 billion that will be spent on such things as nutrition programs for schoolchildren and pregnant women, and seeds and fertilizer for small-scale farmers to improve harvests.

"These initiatives will help address the immediate danger of hunger and malnutrition for the 2 billion people struggling to survive in the face of rising food prices," the president of the World Bank Group, Robert B. Zoellick, said in a statement.

Mr. Zoellick said $200 million of the $1.2 billion would be used as grants for countries most vulnerable to the food crisis. 

Sunday, May 25, 2008

more info on teh Conferencia Internacional de Biocombustíveis

For your information!
Cheers

Renata

Conferência Internacional de Biocombustíveis PDF Imprimir E-mail
O governo federal irá realizar em novembro, na cidade de São Paulo, aConferência Internacional de Biocombustíveis. Serão cinco dias de debate com a participação de representantes de 190 países, entre eles Estados Unidos, China, Índia e Austrália. 

A organização da Conferência Internacional de Biocombustíveis elegeu na segunda-feira (7), a coordenação-geral do evento que será exercida por um Grupo de Trabalho Interministerial (GTI), composto pela Casa Civil, ministérios das Relações Exteriores, de Minas e Energia, do Meio Ambiente, da Agricultura, Pecuária e Abastecimento, da Ciência e Tecnologia, do Desenvolvimento Agrário, BNDES, Apex e Secom.

biodiesel and environmental and social impacts In Brasil report

Hi Biofuelheads,

This is a very important project led by the Centro de Monitoramento de Agrocombustivel and the reportBrasil...
we shall try to talk to them asap...
 

http://www.reporterbrasil.org.br/documentos/o_brasil_dos_agrocombustiveis_v1.pdf

cheers

Renata

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

New Trend in Biofuels Has New Risks

posted by Dustin Mulvaney

May 21, 2008
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL

ROME — In the past year, as the diversion of food crops like corn and palm to make biofuels has helped to drive up food prices, investors and politicians have begun promoting newer, so-called second-generation biofuels as the next wave of green energy. These, made from non-food crops like reeds and wild grasses, would offer fuel without the risk of taking food off the table, they said.

But now, biologists and botanists are warning that they, too, may bring serious unintended consequences. Most of these newer crops are what scientists label invasive species — that is, weeds — that have an extraordinarily high potential to escape biofuel plantations, overrun adjacent farms and natural land, and create economic and ecological havoc in the process, they now say.

At a United Nations meeting in Bonn, Germany, on Tuesday, scientists from the Global Invasive Species Program, the Nature Conservancy and the International Union for Conservation of Nature, as well as other groups, presented a paper with a warning about invasive species.

"Some of the most commonly recommended species for biofuels production are also major invasive alien species," the paper says, adding that these crops should be studied more thoroughly before being cultivated in new areas.

Controlling the spread of such plants could prove difficult, the experts said, producing "greater financial losses than gains." The International Union for Conservation of Nature encapsulated the message like this: "Don't let invasive biofuel crops attack your country."

To reach their conclusions, the scientists compared the list of the most popular second-generation biofuels with the list of invasive species and found an alarming degree of overlap. They said little evaluation of risk had occurred before planting.

"With biofuels, there's always a hurry," said Geoffrey Howard, an invasive species expert with the International Union for Conservation of Nature. "Plantations are started by investors, often from the U.S. or Europe, so they are eager to generate biofuels within a couple of years and also, as you might guess, they don't want a negative assessment."

The biofuels industry said the risk of those crops morphing into weed problems is overstated, noting that proposed biofuel crops, while they have some potential to become weeds, are not plants that inevitably turn invasive.

"There are very few plants that are 'weeds,' full stop," said Willy De Greef, incoming secretary general of EuropaBio, an industry group. "You have to look at the biology of the plant and the environment where you're introducing it and ask, are there worry points here?" He said that biofuel farmers would inevitably introduce new crops carefully because they would not want growth they could not control.

The European Union and the United States have both instituted biofuel targets as a method to reduce carbon emissions. The European Union's target of 10 percent biofuel use in transportation by 2020 is binding. As such, politicians are anxiously awaiting the commercial perfection of second-generation biofuels.

The European Union is funding a project to introduce the "giant reed, a high-yielding, non-food plant into Europe Union agriculture," according to its proposal. The reed is environmentally friendly and a cost-effective crop, poised to become the "champion of biomass crops," the proposal says.

A proposed Florida biofuel plantation and plant, also using giant reed, has been greeted with enthusiasm by investors, its energy sold even before it is built.

But the project has been opposed by the Florida Native Plants Society and a number of scientists because of its proximity to the Everglades, where giant reed overgrowth could be dangerous, they said. The giant reed, previously used mostly in decorations and in making musical instruments — is a fast-growing, thirsty species that has drained wetlands and clogged drainage systems in other places where it has been planted. It is also highly flammable and increases the risk of fires.

From a business perspective, the good thing about second-generation biofuel crops is that they are easy to grow and need little attention. But that is also what creates their invasive potential.

"These are tough survivors, which means they're good producers for biofuel because they grow well on marginal land that you wouldn't use for food," Dr. Howard said. "But we've had 100 years of experience with introductions of these crops that turned out to be disastrous for environment, people, health."

Stas Burgiel, a scientist at the Nature Conservancy, said the cost of controlling invasive species is immense and generally not paid by those who created the problem.

But he and other experts emphasized that some of the second-generation biofuel crops could still be safe if introduced into the right places and under the right conditions

"With biofuels we need to do proper assessments and take appropriate measures so they don't get out of the gate, so to speak," he said. That assessment, he added, must take a broad geographical perspective since invasive species don't respect borders.

The Global Invasive Species Program estimates that the damage from invasive species costs the world more than $1.4 trillion annually — five percent of the global economy.

Jatropha, the darling of the second-generation biofuels community, is now being cultivated widely in East Africa in brand new biofuel plantations. But jatropha has been recently banned by two Australian states as an invasive species. If jatropha, which is poisonous, overgrows farmland or pastures, it could be disastrous for the local food supply in Africa, experts said.

But Mr. De Greef said jatropha had little weed potential in most areas, adding: "Just because a species has caused a problem in one place doesn't make it a weed everywhere."


Mexico's flood survivors blackmailed into biofuels

posted by Dustin Mulvaney

13 May 2008 11:11:00 GMT
Written by: Gregory Berger and Ben Wisner
Reuters and AlertNet are not responsible for the content of this article or for any external internet sites. The views expressed are the author's alone.

A Mexican couple wades through floodwaters in Villahermosa, Tabasco, the state neighbouring Chiapas, November 2007. REUTERS/Manuel Lopez

Did you know that Mexican farmers who lost everything in floods last year are being forced to grow African oil palms for biodiesel?

I was in southern Mexico covering another story, and found flood victims being offered loans and grants by the Mexican government to resume their farming activities, but with a catch. They need to agree to stop growing corn and beans - their traditional crops - and replace them with the oil palms that are native to West Africa.

I was told this by multiple, reliable sources who wish to remain anonymous for fears of their own safety.

The town of San Juan de Grijalva in the southernmost state of Chiapas was completely destroyed last November when a nearby hill collapsed into the Grijalva river, a major waterway. The impact caused a wave of over 50 feet (15 metres) which destroyed every structure in the small town of a few hundred people.

San Juan's residents now are being relocated away from the Grijalva river into purpose-built settlements. These so-called "rural towns" are central to the scheme to make the region - from southern Mexico down through Central America - an exporter of biodiesel.

Chiapas state congressman Luis Darinel Alvarado, a member of the congressional Agrarian Reform Committee, confirmed the policy of African oil palm production.

Governments throughout the region - Guatemala, Honduras and Panama, for example - have biofuel dollar signs in their eyes as petroleum rises above $120 a barrel.

In 1999, after Hurricane Mitch had battered the banana industry in Honduras the previous year, 30 million kilos (66 million pounds) of palm oil were exported as it took over as one of the country's major commercial corps.

Chiapas is geographically and historically linked with Central America. New industrial development of Chiapas and Central America is tied together under the controversial Puebla Panama Plan (PPP) was introduced the start of the millennium under former Mexican President Vicente Fox and recently revived under President Felipe Calderon.

The initiative includes overhauling infrastructure, establishing new industries, and changing agricultural practices to favour new international trade relationships. These new "rural towns" of flood victim residents tending oil palm plantations fall precisely in line with the plan's vision.

Critics say that the push for Puebla Panama is a major factor in the rise of reported paramilitary violence against supporters in Chiapas of the Zapatista movement, an armed movement who rose up in 1994 fighting for local people's rights.

The Zapatistas actively oppose the Puebla Panama Plan, arguing that it will destroy indigenous communities and devastate the ecosystems of Chiapas, which has more biodiversity than any other region of Mexico.

African oil palm has also promoted as a "substitute crop" by U.S. government agencies assisting countries such as Bolivia and Colombia in eradicating coca leaf cultivation, used to produce cocaine.

Small-scale farmers have lost their land, and in Colombia the resulting large-scale African oil palm producers have been linked with paramilitary organisations.

All this is happening as we witness a steep rise in worldwide food prices stirred up by a "perfect storm" of factors. One of the factors identified by the U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food and others is the shift of farm land from food crop production to biofuel production.

Competition with U.S. industrial corn producers under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has driven many small Mexican farmers out of business.

Even before the current crisis, the maize-based staple - flat corn patties called tortillas - became more costly as a result. Conscious of this recent history, displaced flood victims are likely to have second thoughts about relying on biofuel production for income to buy food. Rural Mexicans traditionally value their ability to grown their own food and are adverse to risk.

There are certainly pros and cons to African oil palm production. However, the displaced farmers from San Juan Grijalva should be able to decide themselves whether they want to grow them.

Farmers may see its advantage if oil palm is grown on small-scale, mixed farms, marketed in an honest way, and used as a local energy source.

But under coercion and in the face of rapidly changing market conditions for both biofuel and food, they probably fear the worse and feel trapped between a rock and a hard place.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Scientific American - April

I'll try this for the first time, hope it works...
 
About a promising 'second generation' biofuel.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Switchboard, from NRDC › Nathanael Greene's Blog › In hand wringing over biofuels mandate, safeguards at risk

SPublish Postwitchboard, from NRDC › Nathanael Greene's Blog › In hand wringing over biofuels mandate, safeguards at risk: "'The solution to a lot of the global warming concerns, particularly the land-use emissions concerns, and the solution to getting biofuels out of the food price equation are the same thing,' he said."

Always?

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

a very useful blog we shall add to ours... on biofuel... just amazing

 
 it is one of the most complete site on the issue...check the maps for biodiesel and ethanol refineries. Let´s choose which ones to visit...
I am in touch with the owner Manoel, and hopefully he can join us... when you come to visit BSB in June.
 
 
 
 cheers
 
Renata

biofuels international

biofuels international

Goldman Sachs invests in Brazilian biofuels

2nd August, 2007

Goldman Sachs invests in Brazilian biofuels

US investment bank Goldman Sachs is set to invest 400 million reais (€156 million) into Brazil’s second largest sugar and ethanol producer Santelisa Vale.

Santelisa Vale will process 18 million tonnes of sugarcane this year. The company also has plans for six new sugar mills, with a capacity to crush 2.5 million tonnes of cane each – a total of 15 million tonnes.

It also has a 72% stake in Crystalsev, a company involved in the commercialisation of sugar, ethanol, and electricity, with investment in a specialised ethanol terminal.

"Goldman Sachs brings the necessary expertise for us to leverage our growth plans in the coming years," Santelisa Vale CEO Anselmo Lopes Rodrigues, says.

Santelisa Vale has five mills in Brazil. Four of the new mills will be built in partnership with private equity funds in Companhia Nacional de Açúcar e Àlcool (CNAA), three of which will be located in Minas Gerais and one in Goiás. The other two new mills are Santa Vitória (in Minas Gerais), in which the company holds a 72% stake, and Tropical (in Goiás), with a 50% stake.

Santelisa Vale was formed as the result of a merger in July between Vale do Rosário and Usina Santa Elisa.

biofuels, indirect land use change

Environmental Action

August 20, 2007

Science: Regular Oil Cleaner Than Biofuels
Posted by Glenn Hurowitz at 12:58 PM

Can you digg it?

A new study in the journal Science ($ub req'd) by Renton Rieghelato and Dominick V. Spracklen validates what many have been saying all along: that biofuels, especially those from the tropics, are far worse for the planet than regular old crude oil.

The study finds that we could reduce global warming pollution two to nine times more by conserving or restoring forests and grasslands rather than razing them and turning them into biofuels plantations - even if we continue to use fossil fuels as our main source of energy. That's because those forests and grasslands act as the lungs of the planet - their dense vegetation sucks up far more carbon dioxide and breathes out far more oxygen than any biofuel crop ever could.

When you destroy that wilderness, much of the carbon stored in its living matter is either burned or otherwise oxidized - which is why the destruction of tropical forests accounts for more than 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions (more than China produces). Meanwhile, we'd be saving all the creatures that rely on those wildlands for life. The scale is huge: replacing even 10 percent of our gas with biofuels would require 43 percent of U.S. arable land.

Are you listening George Soros? What about you, Center for American Progress? And you, Barack Obama?

If you don't have access to Science, here's the free write-up from The New Scientist (take action on this issue here).

August 06, 2007

George Soros vs. The Planet
Posted by Glenn Hurowitz at 08:47 AM

Can you digg it?

Well, that whole beating George Bush thing in 2004 didn't work out, so now billionaire financier/Democratic fundraiser/democracy spreader George Soros is back to his first love: making money - apparently even when it comes at the expense of the planet.

Sabrina Valle of The Washington Post is reporting that Soros is one of the biggest investors in growing sugarcane for ethanol in the Brazilian cerrado, "a vast plateau where temperatures range from freezing to steaming hot and bushes and grasslands alternate with forests and the richest variety of flora of all the world's savannas."

That could soon come to an end. In the past four decades, more than half of the Cerrado has been transformed by the encroachment of cattle ranchers and soybean farmers. And now another demand is quickly eating into the landscape: sugarcane, the raw material for Brazilian ethanol.

"Deforestation in the Cerrado is actually happening at a higher rate than it has in the Amazon," said John Buchanan, senior director of business practices for Conservation International in Arlington. "If the actual deforestation rates continue, all the remaining vegetation in the Cerrado could be lost by the year 2030. That would be a huge loss of biodiversity."

The roots of this transformation lie in the worldwide demand for ethanol, recently boosted by a U.S. Senate bill that would mandate the use of 36 billion gallons of ethanol by 2022, more than six times the capacity of the United States' 115 ethanol refineries. President Bush, who proposed a similar increase in his State of the Union address, visited Brazil and negotiated a deal in March to promote ethanol production in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Now Soros (as well as Goldman Sachs and the Carlyle Group) have joined longtime Big Ag environmental villains Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland in investing in sugarcane expansion on formerly wild land, fueling the loss of 7.4 million acres per year of pristine land. This would ordinarily violate sustainability principles adopted by Goldman Sachs and others (Goldman Sachs's policy, for instance, says that the company "will not
finance any project or initiate loans where the specified use of proceeds would
significantly convert or degrade a critical natural habitat.")

So, they claim they're not contributing to the extinction of the jaguars, blue macaws, and giant armadillos that roam(ed) the savannah because they're growing on fallow land, but that's just a big greenwashing cover.

But environmental groups argue that as soy and sugarcane displace cattle and less lucrative crops, ranchers are moving farther into the unspoiled areas of the Cerrado.

"There are ranchers substituting sugarcane for cattle in the Sao Paulo area, for instance, and displacing cattle to the state of Bahia, both in the Cerrado. So what is the point?" asks Ricardo Machado, author of a study about the Cerrado for Conservation International.

It's a widely documented phenomenon fueling deforestation in Indonesia, West Africa and elsewhere: increased demand for land fuels higher commodity prices and expansion into pristine forests.

It's particularly ironic that Soros is working hand in hand with the Bush family by investing $1 billion in growing sugarcane in Brazil. Jeb Bush formed the Interamerican Ethanol Commission in December to promote increased ethanol exports from Latin America, leading, perhaps not coincidentally to President Bush's March deal with Brazilian President Luis Lula Ignacio da Silva.

What really frustrates me more than anything is that these rogue billionaires are destroying these tropical forests for a relatively tiny amount of money, compared to the potential financial value of protecting these lands as carbon sinks. The value of agricultural land on the cerrado ranges from as little as $140 to as high (in areas with the richest land) to $3000. But protecting these areas as carbon sinks could give them a value of up to $6000 per hectare, based on current prices of carbon dioxide that exceed $20 per ton on European markets.

Of course, that would require governments to come together to allow countries and polluters to get greenhouse gas reduction credit for protecting intact ecosystems as carbon sinks, as I recently outlined with Bill Powers in a New York Times op-ed. But there's increasing support for the idea, and as these financiers destroy the forests to create agriculture, they're also destroying much greater potential returns for themselves.

I guess being a rogue billionaire doesn't make you a smart billionaire.

P.S. I've set up an action alert on my website where you can contact George Soros and ask him to withdraw from this project and invest instead in conservation; click here to send him a note. Soros has actually done a tremendous amount of good in his long career, from fighting Soviet tyranny to fighting George Bush, so I think a bit of media scrutiny combined with a grassroots outcry could convince him to align his business practices with his principles and history of good work.

That could soon come to an end. In the past four decades, more than half of the Cerrado has been transformed by the encroachment of cattle ranchers and soybean farmers. And now another demand is quickly eating into the landscape: sugarcane, the raw material for Brazilian ethanol.

"Deforestation in the Cerrado is actually happening at a higher rate than it has in the Amazon," said John Buchanan, senior director of business practices for Conservation International in Arlington. "If the actual deforestation rates continue, all the remaining vegetation in the Cerrado could be lost by the year 2030. That would be a huge loss of biodiversity."

The roots of this transformation lie in the worldwide demand for ethanol, recently boosted by a U.S. Senate bill that would mandate the use of 36 billion gallons of ethanol by 2022, more than six times the capacity of the United States' 115 ethanol refineries. President Bush, who proposed a similar increase in his State of the Union address, visited Brazil and negotiated a deal in March to promote ethanol production in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Now Soros (as well as Goldman Sachs and the Carlyle Group) have joined longtime Big Ag environmental villains Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland in investing in sugarcane expansion on formerly wild land, fueling the loss of 7.4 million acres per year of pristine land. This would ordinarily violate sustainability principles adopted by Goldman Sachs and others (Goldman Sachs's policy, for instance, says that the company "will not
finance any project or initiate loans where the specified use of proceeds would
significantly convert or degrade a critical natural habitat.")

So, they claim they're not contributing to the extinction of the jaguars, blue macaws, and giant armadillos that roam(ed) the savannah because they're growing on fallow land, but that's just a big greenwashing cover.

But environmental groups argue that as soy and sugarcane displace cattle and less lucrative crops, ranchers are moving farther into the unspoiled areas of the Cerrado.

"There are ranchers substituting sugarcane for cattle in the Sao Paulo area, for instance, and displacing cattle to the state of Bahia, both in the Cerrado. So what is the point?" asks Ricardo Machado, author of a study about the Cerrado for Conservation International.

It's a widely documented phenomenon fueling deforestation in Indonesia, West Africa and elsewhere: increased demand for land fuels higher commodity prices and expansion into pristine forests.

It's particularly ironic that Soros is working hand in hand with the Bush family by investing $1 billion in growing sugarcane in Brazil. Jeb Bush formed the Interamerican Ethanol Commission in December to promote increased ethanol exports from Latin America, leading, perhaps not coincidentally to President Bush's March deal with Brazilian President Luis Lula Ignacio da Silva.

What really frustrates me more than anything is that these rogue billionaires are destroying these tropical forests for a relatively tiny amount of money, compared to the potential financial value of protecting these lands as carbon sinks. The value of agricultural land on the cerrado ranges from as little as $140 to as high (in areas with the richest land) to $3000. But protecting these areas as carbon sinks could give them a value of up to $6000 per hectare, based on current prices of carbon dioxide that exceed $20 per ton on European markets.

Of course, that would require governments to come together to allow countries and polluters to get greenhouse gas reduction credit for protecting intact ecosystems as carbon sinks, as I recently outlined with Bill Powers in a New York Times op-ed. But there's increasing support for the idea, and as these financiers destroy the forests to create agriculture, they're also destroying much greater potential returns for themselves.

I guess being a rogue billionaire doesn't make you a smart billionaire.

P.S. I've set up an action alert on my website where you can contact George Soros and ask him to withdraw from this project and invest instead in conservation; click here to send him a note. Soros has actually done a tremendous amount of good in his long career, from fighting Soviet tyranny to fighting George Bush, so I think a bit of media scrutiny combined with a grassroots outcry could convince him to align his business practices with his principles and history of good work.

Goldman - July 06 biofuels to increase crop prices



Rising Biofuel Use to Drive Up Crop Prices - Goldman

LONDON - Rising biofuels demand will probably drive up crop prices and is creating growth opportunities for food processing companies, Goldman Sachs said on Wednesday.

The growth in biofuel demand presents a new competitor for food as commercially available biofuels, such as ethanol and biodiesel, use crops that could otherwise be producing food.

"The most likely impact of this competition for resources (between food and fuel) will be upward pressure on crop prices," Goldman said in a research document on biofuels and food.

"There is evidence to suggest that crop prices have already gone up and will rise further on biofuel growth."

"The major concern here is land availability," Goldman added.

The investment bank said its analysis of crop demand suggested, for example, that a 20 percent replacement of biofuel for fossil fuel for transport needs in the EU could require the use of up to 61 percent of current arable land in the EU.

Currently biofuels account for a little under two percent of fuel transport needs.

"The agri-processors appear well positioned to exploit the growth opportunity offered by biofuels, and are increasing investment in this area," Goldman said.

Growth in biofuels demand is creating opportunities for food processors that are investing in biofuels such as German sugar firm Suedzucker, which Goldman started with a "Buy" recommendation.

Suedzucker shares jumped almost five percent on Wednesday on talk that Goldman had rated the company "Buy".

With oil prices off record peaks, the economics of biofuels have become increasingly appealing, particularly when they are sourced using low-cost feedstock, notably from Brazil.

Another argument for biofuels is climate change and the Kyoto protocol, as biofuels help cut carbon dioxide emissions.

Finally, there is the overall background of increasing demand for energy, notably from rapidly industrialising countries with rising populations, such as China.

Goldman Sachs anticipated significant investment in biofuels, particularly from food processors.

But it said the main constraint on biofuel growth would be the availability of land and crops.

"While the issue of biofuels impacting pricing (of food raw materials) may seem to be a distant threat, it could be argued that the impact is already being seen in markets such as rapeseed oil in Europe (for biodiesel production) and the world price of sugar cane (for ethanol)," it said.

Ethanol, the most widely used biofuel, is derived from sugar cane and is used widely in flex-fuel cars in Brazil.

Story Date: 20/7/2006

Back to Top
Back to Headlines
See yesterday's headlines

All Contents
© Reuters News Service 2008

The Biofuels Backlash - WSJ.com

The Biofuels Backlash - WSJ.com: "REVIEW & OUTLOOK

The Biofuels Backlash
May 7, 2008; Page A18

St. Jude is the patron saint of lost causes, and for 30 years we invoked his name as we opposed ethanol subsidies. So imagine our great, pleasant surprise to see that the world is suddenly awakening to the folly of subsidized biofuels.

All it took was a mere global 'food crisis.' Last week chief economist Joseph Glauber of the USDA, which has been among Big Ethanol's best friends in Washington, blamed biofuels for increasing prices on corn and soybeans. Mr. Glauber also predicted that corn prices will continue their historic rise because of demand from 'expanding use for ethanol.'

Even the environmental left, which pushed ethanol for decades as an alternative to gasoline, is coming clean. Lester Brown, one of the original eco-Apostles, wrote in the Washington Post that 'it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that food-to-fuel mandates have failed.' We knew for sure the tide had turned when Time magazine's recent cover story, 'The Clean Energy Myth,' described how turning crops into fuel increases both food prices and atmospheric CO2. No one captures elite green wisdom better than Time's Manhattan editors. Can Vanity Fair be far behind?

All we can say is, welcome aboard. Corn ethanol can now join the scare over silicone breast implants and the pesticide Alar as among the greatest scams of the age. But before we move on to the next green miracle cure, it's worth recounting how much damage this ethanol political machine is doing.

To create just one gallon of fuel, ethanol slurps up 1,700 gallons of water, according to Cornell's David Pimentel, and 51 cents of tax credits. And it still can't compete against oil without a protective 54-cents-per-gallon tariff on imports and a federal mandate that forces it into our gas tanks. The record 30 million acres the U.S. will devote to ethanol production this year will consume almost a third of America's corn crop while yielding fuel amounting to less than 3% of petroleum consumption.

In December the Congressional Research Service warned that even devoting every last ear of American-grown corn to ethanol would not create enough "renewable fuel" to meet federal mandates. According to a 2007 OECD report, fossil-fuel production is up to 10,000 times as efficient as biofuel, measured by energy produced per unit of land.

Now scientists are showing that ethanol will exacerbate greenhouse gas emissions. A February report in the journal Science found that "corn-based ethanol, instead of producing a 20% savings, nearly doubles greenhouse emissions over 30 years . . . Biofuels from switchgrass, if grown on U.S. corn lands, increase emissions by 50%." Princeton's Timothy Searchinger and colleagues at Iowa State, of all places, found that markets for biofuel encourage farmers to level forests and convert wilderness into cropland. This is to replace the land diverted from food to fuel.

As usual, Congress is the last to know, but maybe even it is catching on. Credit goes to John McCain, the first presidential candidate in recent memory who has refused to bow before King Ethanol. Onetime ethanol opponent Hillary Clinton announced her support in 2006, as the Iowa caucuses beckoned. In 2006 Barack Obama proposed mandating a staggering 65 billion gallons a year of alternative fuel by 2025, but by this Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" he was suggesting that maybe helping "people get something to eat" was a higher priority than biofuels.

Mr. McCain and 24 other Senators are now urging EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson to consider using his broad waiver authority to eliminate looming biofuel mandates. Otherwise, the law will force us to consume roughly four times the current requirement by 2022. In fact, with some concerned state governments submitting helpful petitions, Mr. Johnson could largely knock out the ethanol mandate regime, at least temporarily.

Over the longer term, however, this shouldn't be entrusted to unelected bureaucrats. The best policy would repeal the biofuel mandates and subsidies enacted in the 2005 and 2007 energy bills. We say repeal because there will be intense lobbying to keep the subsidies, or transfer them from projects that have failed to those that have not yet failed.

Like Suzanne Somers in "American Graffiti," the perfect biofuel is always just out of reach, only a few more billion dollars in subsidies away from commercial viability. But sometimes even massive government aid can't turn science projects into products. The industry's hope continues for cellulosic ethanol, but there's no getting around the fact that biofuels require vegetation to make fuel. Even cellulosic ethanol, while more efficient than corn, will require countless acres of fuel if it is ever going to replace oil. Perhaps some future technology will efficiently extract energy from useless corn stalks and fallen trees. But until that day, Congress's ethanol subsidies are merely force-feeding an industry that is doing far more harm than good.

The results include distorted investment decisions, higher carbon emissions, higher food prices for Americans, and an emerging humanitarian crisis in the developing world. The last thing the poor of Africa and the taxpayers of America need is another scheme to conjure gasoline out of corn and tax credits.

Monday, May 5, 2008

All of Inflation’s Little Parts - The New York Times


All of Inflation’s Little Parts - The New York Times

Excellent NYT graphic depicting components of inflation.

"Sources: Bureau of Labor Statistics; Michael Balzer, University of Konstanz (Germany)
Amanda Cox/The New York Times"


Biofuels conference in Brazil 2008

Here's a link to the biodisel conferences in 2008.
 
Cheers

Renata

Record Sugar cane and ethanol production fr 2008

Geral
terça-feira, 29 de abril de 2008, 14:56 | Online
Governo estima produção recorde de cana em 2008
Demanda crescente por etanol levará País a produzir até 631,5 milhões de toneladas de cana neste ano
Gustavo Porto, da Agência Estado Tamanho do texto? A A A A
RIBEIRÃO PRETO, SP - A forte demanda pelo álcool combustível fará com que o Brasil produza entre 607,8 milhões de toneladas e 631,5 milhões de toneladas e processe de 558,1 milhões de toneladas a 579,8 milhões de toneladas de cana-de-açúcar em 2008, um recorde, de acordo com a primeira estimativa do governo, divulgada nesta terça-feira, 29, pela Companhia Nacional de Abastecimento (Conab), em Ribeirão Preto (SP). O crescimento na colheita sobre 2007 deve variar de 8,8% a 13,1% e o aumento na moagem para a produção de álcool e açúcar deve ser de 11,3% a 15,6% sobre as 501,5 milhões de toneladas processadas em 2007.

A Conab prevê que 55,5% da cana moída pela indústria sucroalcooleira, ou seja, entre 309,8 mi de t e 321,9 mi de t, terão como destino à produção de álcool e 44,5% (entre 248,3 mi de t e 257,9 mi de t) serão destinados ao açúcar. A cana colhida deve gerar ainda entre 49,68 mi de t e 51,75 mi de t para outros fins, como a produção de sementes, mudas, cachaça, rapadura e alimentação animal. A área total de cana no País deve aumentar, entre 2007 e 2008, 11,43%, de 7 milhões de hectares para 7,8 milhões de hectares.

Álcool

A produção brasileira de álcool em 2008 será, de acordo com a Conab, de 26,45 bilhões de litros a 27,49 bilhões de litros, aumento de 14,97% a 19,46% sobre os 23 bilhões de litros de 2007. Com 90% do processamento, o Centro-Sul do Brasil deve produzir entre 24,1 bilhões e 25 bilhões de litros de álcool, e o Nordeste, com os 10% restantes, vai gerar entre 2,4 bilhões e 2,5 bilhões de litros.

A disparada na demanda no mercado interno, com o uso do etanol nos veículos flex, cuja frota já ultrapassa 5 milhões de unidades, fará com que a produção de álcool hidratado tenha a maior variação no crescimento entre todos os dados divulgados pela Conab. De acordo com a estatal, a produção de hidratado no Brasil em 2008 será de 16,9 bilhões de litros a 17,5 bilhões de litros, altas de, respectivamente, 17,5% e 22%.

A produção de álcool anidro, usado na mistura em 25% à gasolina, vai crescer entre 10,9% e 15,2%, de acordo com a Conab, para entre 9,6 bilhões de litros e 10 bilhões de litros. O Brasil deve exportar ainda 4,2 bilhões de litros e álcool em 2008, a maioria deste volume (2,5 bilhões de litros) para os Estados Unidos.

Açúcar

Já a produção brasileira de açúcar vai crescer entre 8,27% e 12,41% em relação a 2007, de acordo com a Conab, e irá variar entre 33,87 milhões de t e 35,16 milhões de t. O Centro-Sul vai produzir entre 28,8 milhões de t e 29,9 milhões de t. Já a produção do Nordeste deve ser de 5 milhões de t a 5,2 milhões de t.

De acordo com a Conab, os principais motivos para o aumento na produção de cana são o clima favorável, os investimentos em tecnologia nas unidades sucroalcooleiras e o cultivo de variedades mais produtivas.

O levantamento foi realizado por 49 técnicos da companhia entre 31 de março e 11 de abril, com a visita em 361 unidades produtoras, além de sindicatos, entidades de assistência técnica e extensão rural, o Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE) e outros órgãos governamentais.

Área

A área de cana-de-açúcar para a indústria sucroalcooleira no Brasil cresceu 653,72 mil hectares entre 2007 e 2008, e 64,7% dessa ampliação, ou 423,12 mil hectares, ocorreu sobre pastagens, de acordo com o estudo "Perfil do Setor do Açúcar e do Álcool no Brasil", divulgado pela Conab. Os dados apontam que as lavouras de soja cederam 110,44 mil hectares, ou 16,9% do total da área ampliada em cana no País. Milho e laranja cederam, respectivamente, 32,21 mil e 30,79 mil hectares para a cana-de-açúcar entre as duas safras, de acordo com o estudo da Conab.

A maior parte do avanço da cultura canavieira ocorreu na região Centro-Sul, com 617,01 mil hectares de crescimento, seguido do Norte e Nordeste, com 36,7 mil hectares.

Tags: Biocombustíveis, Conab, Cana O que são TAGS?