Complex costs and benefits: The benefits of using ethanol produced from corn in the U.S. are much less than those achieved by using ethanol produced from molasses in Australia.
Credit: iStockphoto
Breathing easy
The benefits of biofuels for local air quality also differ, and depend on population densities. The air quality in Australian cities, which are sparsely populated, is often far better than in overseas cities, and consequently the benefits of using biofuels in Australia are not as great. They are, nonetheless, significant.
In 2000, it was estimated that in Australia the pollution from motor vehicles caused between 900 and 4,500 cases of illness and between 900 and 2,000 deaths per year. Further estimates of the economic cost of those health impacts range from about 30 cents per tonne of carbon monoxide in non-urban areas to over a quarter of a million dollars per tonne of particulate matter (PM) in urban areas.
Recently, the Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Transport Economics has attempted to put monetary costs on the value of using biofuels in the Australian context, based on the reductions achieved in local air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. The study concluded that for E10, a subsidy of between 0.34 c/L and 0.57 c/L could be justifiable, depending on the feedstock, while for B5, a subsidy of between 0.49 c/L and 0.95 c/L could be justified.
Support biofuel
These figures represent estimates of the economic costs of reducing local air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. In using such results to inform policy, however, we need to remember that to compare the energy balances of biofuels with those of petrol or diesel is only meaningful while these are the main fuels used.
At some stage, the energy balance of a biofuel will have to be compared to that of other alternative fuels replacing conventional petrol and diesel.
In addition, biofuels could form a part of a solution to a problem that is likely to arise if over the next decade the world oil price significantly rises and at the same time Australia's oil production significantly declines.
To avoid a potential blowout in Australia's balance of trade, Australia will need to limit its dependency on oil imports over the coming years. The role that current generation biofuels can play is limited.
Other options, including second-generation biofuels produced from waste cellulosic materials and from microalgae, will be needed. Those technologies are a number of years away from being commercial but once available it will be important to be able to shift to those fuels as quickly as possible.
This will depend on prior experience in the use of biofuels and the systems that are by then in place for using it. It is difficult to put a cost on that important bridging role that first generation biofuels may play, but perhaps it is the major reason for supporting the industry.
David Harries is the director of the Centre for Research into Energy for sustainable Transport at Murdoch University in Perth, Western Australia.
This opinion piece was originally published by the Australian R&D Review.
We already have a viable biofuel
You know what it is, Hemp.
You can get much more fuel, about 3 times as much if I remember correctly, from Hemp then you can from corn, plus you can grow it 4 times a year and a recent NSW grower made a crop that grows in 7 weeks. There are zero greenhouse gas emissions and it improves soil in the area it is grown.
It's terrible that this hasn't been explored yet.
Every time I see an article on bio fuel I'm waiting and waiting for this to pop up somewhere but it never does. Are people still stuck in the reefer madness days or what?
Biofools
Biofuel is a "best option" only if you take oil, coal, and nat gas out of the equation. Which, of course, our brain dead, morally bankrupt, corruption we call Congress and Presidency have artificially done. The rest is pure invention used as justification for government money and political power.
Well...
Yes biofuels are our best bet, but while all of us are spending our money on trying to get the right things to make a compatible car, we're stuck still having to waste our money on gas, money we don't have. Even if we do somehow (and I'm very confident we will) make a car that's compatible with corn and other cooking related items it will most likely be in a form we can not make at home. Which is what every one thinks it'll be like. We'll still have to pump it at stations and pay for it, even tho it will be MUCH better for the Earth, I don't think it'll be as good as every one thinks it will be. Not that I don't want the Earth to be healthy, but I think we should try to invest our money a little wiser.