Recently I came across this article " Poison plant could help to cure the planet" in the Times Online by Ben Macintyre.
Almost overnight, the unloved Jatropha curcushas became an agricultural and economic celebrity, with the discovery that it may be the ideal biofuel crop, an alternative to fossil fuels for a world dangerously dependent on oil supplies and deeply alarmed by the effects of global warming.
The hardy jatropha, resilient to pests and resistant to drought, produces seeds with up to 40 per cent oil content. When the seeds are crushed, the resulting jatropha oil can be burnt in a standard diesel car, while the residue can also be processed into biomass to power electricity plants.
While the crop appears to grow in marginal areas where nothing much exists anyhow, we still need to consider how such crops might affect the ecosystems where they are planted on a massive scale.
At about the same time, I came across this report about how " Algae looks good for biodiesel" by Amy Quinton:
As the U.S. looks for ways cut dependence on foreign oil and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, biofuels are rising toward the top of the mix of alternative fuels. Bio-fuels such as ethanol or bio-diesel burn cleaner than oil-based diesel and are seen as an environmentally-friendly replacement for our 60 billion gallon per year thirst for diesel oil. They're made from plants, and here's the rub. There aren't enough crops or land to produce enough bio-diesel to replace fossil fuel-based diesel.
We must be cautious however as it is a source of increasing frustration to many deeply immersed in sustainability to see that the bulk of the political and economic momentum in the mainstream focused on promoting "renewable" practices that will reduce the biological carrying capacity of humanity by further depleting already degraded ecosystems. The ecologists use a term called NPP (I think its full name is Net Primary Productivity) to refer to the amount of photosynthetic biomass we use for human purposes.
The exponential growth in the percent of global NPP (to power our ultra modern systems) seems to indicate that there are real problems with the sustainability of the current biomass we now use. Increasing that even more by planting once natural lands with Jatropha so that we can continue to drive our cars (with an illusionary notion that we can now have piece of mind that with biofuels our cars are now helping to "save the environment"), now that they are powered by biofuels, hardly seems like a serious strategy towards a more sustainable world. However on the bright side, it is encouraging to see some of the biofuels researchers are trying to move away from corn and other biocrops and towards crop residuals and waste products that do not involve direct conversion of crop lands and forests to biocrop monocultures.
To break it down to the most basic parts, I see the main aspects to the global environmental crisis as
- Preservation of biological carrying capacity as in preventing " Die Off"
- Avoiding massive water shortages as in preventing massive destabilization due to loss of reliable potable area for major cities and regions of the world
- Mitigating climate change as in preventing major climate shifts and disruptions of weather patterns and ecosystems including the loss of many species (contributing to 1) and also to the destabilization of coastal regions where most of the human population now resides (such as what we are already seeing with many small island states and of course New Orleans)
- Authentic Renewable Energy as in preventing "Peak Oil" and not making climate change worse with continued use of C02 based fuels and also not growing biocrops that contribute to the worsening of 1
In relation to Biofuels specifically with respect to #4 the ones that are potentially sustainable:
- Biogas as in integrated farming/permaculture (see Biogas China)
- Research into Algae for fuel
- Recycling of waste biomass from industrial and residential processes that would otherwise simply treat it as waste (even that is problematic because the biomass should be recycled back into the earth as described in David Bloom's book Alcohol can be a Gas.
Designing a sustainable energy policy should be focused on research and development in the field that is based on a consideration of sustainable sources and a focus on renewables that are not biobased including wave power, ocean thermal , geothermal, solar thermal, passive solar, PV solar and wind and also the biofuels mentioned above.
The source should also be evolving towards some sort of lobbying effort to convince policymakers and investors to reduce the amount of investments in renewables that are in some if not most cases more destructive on the ecology than the fossil fuels they claim to be the "green" alternative to.
Indonesia has been devastated by the rapid destruction of its rainforest and so I am quite skeptical that replacing gas with boideisel made from growing Jatropha in places where there were once pristine rainforests is a bona fide sustainable solution.
Having said that, I think it is also important to remain open to such approaches as a temporary and transitional movement towards bona fide sustainability that can help some marginalized non-affluent tropical communities become more self-reliant on energy. With that though I would have to see proof that biodiversity was preserved in the process of this development strategy and social considerations were being made to improve the lives of local workers and community members.
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