March 10, 2010 

 

 

Achieving a sustainable balance between feed crop supplies and energy production was the theme of this year's Bioenergy Asia 2011. Held concurrently with VIV Asia 2011 in Bangkok, Thailand from March 9-11, leading experts explained various facets of the evolving, often strained relationship between biofuel and feed inputs.

 

Dr. Prasert Sinsukprasert, director of planning for Thailand's department of alternative energy and efficiency explained the tense relationship between his country's energy demand and formidable agribusiness sector. In particular, he demonstrated how high Asian oilseed demand, a flood damaged palm oil harvest and Thai livestock production interacted to create an additional layer of feed market complexity. He also made it clear that at this time, crop competition between feed and fuel is creating a problematic, zero-sum dilemma for both sectors.

 

Later, Dr. Beau Damen, bioenergy officer for the UN FAO's regional office for Asia Pacific office cut to the heart of this dilemma, stating that what is required is "a resolution of the trade-offs associated with bioenergy development." While calling for a resolution of this dilemma, Damen made clear that a policy that would optimise the benefits of biofuel production in one country would not be effective in another.

 

This is because the relationship between agribusiness and biofuel production is inconstant. It varies from country to country, depending on a particular nation's resource base, income growth and economic status. Hence, feed and biofuel policies that are optimal for one country could be inappropriate for a neighbouring nation. For example, there is going to be far less of a migration away from biofuels to fossil fuels in mature South Korea and Japan than in Vietnam, where mechanised vehicles continue to be substituted in place of raw animal power.

 

Moreover, one country's biofuel policy decisions frequently impact feed crop prices and the effectiveness of policy decisions of another. For example, with China needing to import 50% of its future biofuel needs, Damen explains how Asia is impacted by the country's equally out-sized feed and fuel needs.

 

With feed-inefficient cassava being Beijing's biofuel feedstock of choice, China's demand is impacting Asean supplies of this alternative feed material. Particularly as Thailand and Vietnam are the world's two leading cassava exporters. Of course, this adds an additional layer of complexity to the underlying fact that under the present circumstances, there can never be 'one size fits all' strategy to balance the feed and biofuel sectors.

 

With Asia's diverse complex, yet interdependent biofuel issues in mind, Damen introduced the audience to the concept of a "bioenergy-food safety framework": An FAO designed quantitative model that enables government policymakers to tailor biofuel policy decisions to their country's unique needs and resource endowments.

 

Collectively, conference speakers demonstrated how today's biofuel technologies create complex interdependencies and cannot achieve a stable market balance between energy and agribusiness.

 

Later, a possible solution to this conundrum was offered by Dr. William Chen Wei Ning from Singapore's Nanyang Technological University (NTU). Explaining the evolution of first and second generation biofuels, Dr. Ning explained how emerging biofuel making technologies could free up additional feed crops for the feed and livestock sector.

 

According to Ning, "It is suggested that fast growing trees and grasses be used as second generation biofuels, as this would restore feed crops and planted acreage, as many woods and grasses do not need the arable growing land required for feed crops."

 

However, to enable such a profound return of feed crops to livestock production, an economical means of converting cellulose into fermentable carbohydrates must be found. Ideal in principle and initially highly promising, Ning explained the pros and cons of both biochemical and thermal means of making cellulose fermentable.

 

He also alluded to ground breaking NUS research into using microbes to produce alkenes, a class of hydrocarbons used in many fuels including diesel, petrol and jet fuel. Ning made it clear that while such promising second generation technologies "remain immature," much depends on their being made economically viable during the next decade.

 

One speaker noted that some projections assume that up to a third of US ethanol demand will be satisfied via cellulosic fermentation within ten years. Hence, much of this unready technology will profoundly determine whether corn exports can keep pace with Asian feed demand.

 

Further expanding on the theme of new biofuel making techniques, Samuel West-Stuart, CEO of Asia Biogas Company Limited explained how making natural gas from non-feed biowaste creates feedback mechanisms that mitigate bioenergy's impact on the agribusiness sector. For example, with natural gas making up 80% of fertiliser production costs, cellulosic fermentation and biogas generation could, in theory, restore feed and fossil fuel inputs currently diverted out of the protein making pipeline.

 

Another aspect made clear during this conference is that despite the wishes of both environmentalists and agribusiness companies, it is now impossible to 'turn back the clock': Ironically, this is partly due to the fact that the precarious relationship between feed and fuel not withstanding, agribusiness itself is too energy intensive to stop biofuel production. 

 

On one hand, it takes 10 calories of fossil fuels to produce one calorie of meat. On the other hand, Frost & Sullivan states that ethanol and biodiesel take the place of 2.47 million barrels of oil a day. Consequently, restoring biofuel crops back to the feed sector would merely shift agribusiness input shortages from feed crops to the more energy-intensive supply chain nodes, including fertiliser costs, transport and refrigeration.

 

Clearly, until second generation technologies become economically viable, the relationship between fuel and feed will remain a delicate balancing act. Essentially, Bioenergy Asia was an insightful status report on the feed vs. fuel dilemma's resolution, which remains a work-in-progress. Much depends on future research, the results of which will be on display in conferences to come.

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