Madison, Wisconsin
October 17, 2007
What do the countries of Thailand,
Uruguay and Ghana have in common? They all could become leading
producers of the emerging renewable fuel known as biodiesel,
says a study from
the Madison Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies.
The ease of manufacturing biodiesel from vegetable oils and
animal fats has made it one of the most promising, near-term
alternatives to fossil fuels. Seeking to understand which
nations are best positioned today to enter the burgeoning
biodiesel market, researchers Matt Johnston and Tracey Holloway
of the Nelson Institute's Center for Sustainability and the
Global Environment (SAGE) ranked 226 countries according to
their potential to make large volumes of biodiesel at low cost.
Reported online today (Oct. 17) in Environmental Science and
Technology, the analysis uncovered many of the usual suspects,
including the United States, a top soybean grower; and Brazil,
already a major biodiesel producer. The Netherlands, Germany,
Belgium and Spain also cracked the top ten in overall volume
potential.
But the researchers say the study's true motivation was to
identify developing countries that already export significant
amounts of vegetable oil for profit, but may not have considered
refining it into biodiesel. By exporting biodiesel - a higher
value commodity - these countries could improve their trade
balances, says Johnston, or use the fuel to offset their own
energy needs.
"A lot of these countries don't have any petroleum resources and
so they're having to import petroleum," he says. "At the same
time, they're exporting vegetable oil that they could be turning
into biodiesel and using domestically."
Overall, the study ranked Malaysia, Thailand, Colombia, Uruguay
and Ghana as the developing nations most likely to attract
biodiesel investment, not only because of their strong
agricultural industries, but also due to their relative safety
and stability, lack of debt, among other economic factors.
Johnston emphasizes, however, that the set of criteria he and
Holloway used is just one among many.
"As long as they're profitable and have large volumes of
vegetable oils, all the countries on our list - even if they
aren't on our top ten list - they could do this," he says.
The idea for the analysis first struck Johnston on a visit to a
remote island of Fiji, where people rely primarily on petroleum
diesel to run generators for electricity. Transported in by
boat, the fuel cost the equivalent of $20 per gallon. Meanwhile,
the islanders were growing coconuts and processing them into oil
that sold for 50 cents a liter.
"The price disparity was just incredible," says Johnston, "and
it prompted me to think about where else in the world countries
might have this biofuels potential, but not necessarily realize
it."
At the same time, many agencies - chief among them the United
Nations - have raised concerns about the biofuel industry's
possible impact on the world's poor, as vegetable oils, now used
for food, are increasingly diverted to fuel production. Rampant
growth of biofuels could also negatively affect the environment;
a soaring demand for palm oil, for example, has already led to
deforestation in Southeast Asia.
By highlighting the places in the world where biodiesel
development will likely happen, Johnston and Holloway hope their
analysis will help people foresee these problems and make plans
to mitigate them.
"We're not saying, 'There's all this potential out there, go get
it,'" says Johnston. "Instead, we're looking at which vegetable
oil feed stocks are most likely to be affected and which
countries will most likely be doing this at a large-scale. That
way, we can anticipate some of the impacts, as opposed to having
to react after the fact."
Of all the vegetable oils and animal fats examined in the study,
soybean and palm oil were by far the most common. In fact, the
world's top five soybean and palm oil producers - Malaysia,
Indonesia, Argentina, the United States and Brazil - accounted
for 80 percent of the potential global biodiesel production, the
researchers found.
Based on current export volumes of vegetable oil from 119
countries, Johnston also estimated that a grand total of 51
billion liters of biodiesel could be produced annually - enough
to meet roughly 4-5 percent of the world's existing demand for
petroleum diesel. Yet, although interesting, these numbers
aren't the main point.
"We're not suggesting that all exported vegetable oil should be
converted into biodiesel, because that would fundamentally upset
the food supply," says Holloway. "We're looking at this more
from each individual country's perspective: They're already
exporting one thing, could they be exporting something else?"
Because the study employed data from online, public sources -
primarily the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United
Nations Statistics Division - Holloway points out that any
country could repeat the calculations or do its own analysis of
the biodiesel opportunity. And she and Johnston hope they will.
"I'd love to see some of these development opportunities come to
fruition for some of these countries," Johnston says.
To see the study's complete list of rankings, visit
http://www.sage.wisc.edu/energy/. |
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