Anthropocentric Vanity.

Last week, we talked about environmental accounting as a solution to environmental problems of today. As a matter of fact, holistic accounting methodology could be our best chance at achieving sustainable development today. There are a few ways we can achieve sustainable development and one of the ways is decoupling. Biofuels allow mankind to grow our own fuels instead of having to source for more coal or fossil fuels for energy production. Even though carbon dioxide is still released when biofuels are burned, biofuel crops take in carbon dioxide as they grow hence there is zero net carbon released into the atmosphere. Since production of energy using biofuels reduces our reliance on finite energy sources and has zero net carbon emissions, it brought us a step closer to decouple from nature by reducing reliability and mitigating global warming to a certain extent. Is that really the case? Other than the carbon cycle, mankind has tipped the nutrient (nitrogen and phosphorous) cycle as well. Land that are intensified and constantly produces crops will run out of nutrients eventually, especially if agricultural practices were unsustainable. Usage of chemical fertilisers would be increased hence pollution worsens in nearby water bodies. Are such costs included when considering the use of biofuels? 

Lets take a look at the carbon cycle:

Legend:
Triangle – Zero net carbon change in the case of biofuels
Red oval – Processes accelerated due to human activities
Yellow box – Processes that should be accelerated

Since some processes in the carbon cycle are accelerated cause of humans, other processes in the cycle should be occurring at a higher speed as well so that ‘carbon equilibrium’ can be maintained. Evidently, the best solution to ensure carbon equilibrium is to restore carbon back into the form of coal or fossil fuels or any equivalent, a process also known as carbon sequestration. However, little attention or resources has been allocated to research in this area as there are no economic benefits from doing so. Furthermore, finding a solution of that sort would mean an end to the climate change crisis. If we think about it, the climate change issue has been beneficial to various industries such as the air-conditioning, irrigation, renewable energy industries etc., albeit to different extents. Hence, attention and resources are diverted to sustainable development which focuses on creating new technology to ensure continuity of human survival such as Genetically Modified Food and biofuels. New technology bring about a new set of problems which are usually resolved by creating another type of technology that creates more problems. It is a positive feedback that does not stop. We ‘develop’ as we innovate, create new problems, then innovate again to solve new problems. So are we working towards absolute decoupling or deviating away from it? Why are we not finding the missing link in the carbon cycle (sequestration) to solve this problem once and for all? It is not wrong to say that anthropogenic development happens because of vanity. We create problems to solve and feel clever and great about ourselves after solving it. 

Putting an economic value on environmental costs, viable?

In the previous post, we talked about how development could be natural. However, not everything that occurs naturally are good. Things seem to go wrong when economic values are attached to the resources. For instance, rubber trees used to be of little economic value before people knew how to collect latex. Thereafter, capitalists start destroying natural forested areas to make way for rubber tree plantations. Introducing and using biofuels as a major energy source will only increase value of certain crops (first and second generation mainly), exacerbating artificial selection. In the past, humans may not have realised the possible environmental nor social consequences of human activities thus values of a product only comprise of commercial marketable value. Today, externalities such as social and environmental costs can be calculated and included in official financial accounts via costs of ecosystem services as people increasingly see the importance of sustainable development. Including socio-environmental costs into the capitalist system is a great idea since it has always been missing in the capitalist equation. Hence, the increasing attention given to biofuels can be attributed to this new holistic accounting method. However, there are a few problems associated with it. How do we know if the environmental values are ‘correct’? Are we able to accurately to translate socio-environmental values such as ‘lesser carbon footprint’ into economic values that can be included in the calculation of traditional economic accounts? Putting aside the technical problems, let us take a look at the practical problems. Is it actually viable to capitalise on the social and environmental aspect of anything? In the capitalist world, there has to be revenue, costs and self-interested capitalists who strive to maximise profits. Social and environmental costs can be calculated but private firms are not interested as the benefits (revenue) are non-excludable. In other words, firms will be incurring higher costs which benefit the society as a whole and not oneself. There is no incentive for a capitalist, whose primary aim is to maximise profits, to include such costs. In other words, traditional economic and capitalist ideas are still deeply ingrained in the international market. Then why are biofuels gaining so much attention from the LDCs such as Malaysia and Indonesia who wants to become major biofuels powers?Even though biofuels are often marketed as environmentally friendly fuels, capitalists are intrigued by other characteristics of biofuels – renewability and low costs of production. Being renewable means that it will never run out unlike coal or fossil fuels, so producers worry less about volatile prices of biofuels. On top of that, unlike other renewable resources, biofuels can be assimilated into the current energy supply chain with minimal technical adjustment hence have much lower costs comparted to renewable energy such as hydroelectric, wind or nuclear energy where power plants and infrastructure has to be built from scratch. In other words, socio-environmental accounting has little significance in affecting the biofuels market, which essentially still is driven by traditional economic factors. 

Technological advancement, natural?

Technological advancement, domination of nature, all natural processes? Recently I did a research on biofuels and there are a few interesting ideas I have come across, which i will discuss in the span of a few weeks from today onwards.
First generation biofuels (corn) are biofuels that can be both food crops and biofuels, second generation biofuels (jatropha) are those which are not of any other commercial use and third generation biofuels are genetically modified oil-producing algae. (Generations of Biofuels - Energy from waste and wood, 2015) Biofuels are of course, resources of nature and they can be signs of mankind dominating nature. Third generation biofuels are clearly dominated by us because they are ‘creations of mankind’. Others argue that domination started before that. Plants are commonly seen as the basis of life as it is the source of energy for almost all living things on earth. Yet we are using these resources for our own consumption in a way that population size and survival of these species are human-dependent. In other words, domination starts when we start planting crops consciously, thereby replacing natural selection with artificial selection through manipulation of nature to suit our own needs. Does that mean discovering fire and creating tools back in the Stone Age are evidences of domination of nature? Or are they simply our means of survival? Darwin would say that technology is a tool mankind used to out compete other species (survival of the fittest). Evolution will not happen without domination – it is a natural process. Today, it seems like we dominate other species more than we are supposed to such that these species are no longer 'natural'. However if domination and evolution are natural processes, human domination of other species, domination of evolution or even nature can simply be argued to be the work of nature herself. Hence every artifact we have on earth today – cars, societies, economies, technological development, economic development, they are all a result of natural processes? 

Biofuels

This post is a response to the following readings: 

Are biofuels pro-poor? Assessing the evidence

Prospects of biodiesel from Jatropha in Malaysia

The readings seem to be skeptical about the sustainability of biofuels as an alternative source of energy. For instance, the conclusion of the article talking about Japtropha in Malaysia mentioned “Japtropha is claimed: not to compete with food…” and the article about biofuels being anti-poor even stated that biofuel policies is ‘a crime against humanity’

The idea of biofuels being carbon neutral, being a renewable source of energy, even its name make it seem like a promising solution to energy security issues in the light of climate problems we are facing today.

However biofuels cause problems such as food security (first generation biofuels) and worsening of environmental problems (second generation biofuels) which are difficult to address. Thus the question is: Is this trade-off worth it?

If we take this question to a global scale where fossil fuels are depleting rapidly, the trade-off would be worth it as food security is not undermined. Moreover, biofuels are relatively more environmentally-friendly compared to fossil fuels. Today, we produce more than enough food for everyone in the world – the problems lies in food distribution. Hence, allocating some food crops to biofuels can in fact reduce food wastage. I admit this is a very naïve idea but I believe if detailed analysis was done and policies are put in place, there will be minimal price spikes in the agricultural markets. Idealistically, an effective system that collects wasted food to be used as biofuels would make the world go round.

However if we were to take it to a national scale, biofuels may not be the answer to countries with poor food security and limited arable land. Nations that lack food security usually are underdeveloped (and are reliant on primary sectors) hence may be more encouraged to dive into this new prospective market without proper policies in place to ensure food security and minimize environmental degradation.

Even with sound policies in place, there are still risks in biofuels investments as these biofuels would mainly be exported out for energy consumption in developed countries, who are pumping capital to fund research efforts to deal with the energy crisis. Technology such as fracking or third generation biofuels could be seen as a better alternative to the conventional biofuels which have a shorter lifespan.

Biofuels has been around for a long time and yet it has never gained popularity. Albeit there has been technological improvements (second generation and the upcoming third generation), biofuels are still not as sustainable as it claims to be and it is closely linked to food markets, which is an important yet volatile market by nature. Hence, biofuels should not be the answer to our impending energy crisis as there are many other alternatives we can turn to.