With the atmospheric carbon emissions levels hovering around 391 parts per million (ppm) as of January 2011, and the threat of rising global oil prices, the need to reduce carbon emissions and reliance upon oil is increasingly clear.

Along with other green technologies like wind, solar and hydro energy, biofuels can be utilized to fight climate change.

However, biofuel technologies will only help if caution is observed.

Biofuels come from biological products that can produce fuel. These can range from ethanol, wood chips, animal fat, biomass, algae and vegetable oil. Biofuels are considered a renewable resource because these products can be reused.

They are often classified in various types of categories: first generation, second generation and third generation.

First generation biofuels are those fuels that involve food stocks like corn, vegetable oil, starch and sugar. Examples of first generation biofuels are ethanol derived from sugar cane from Brazil, or corn-based ethanol from Manitoba or Iowa.

These types of fuels have many advantages as a way to fight climate change and help the economy.

One obvious benefit is that they can reduce the amount of gasoline used.

According to the Government of Manitoba, a fuel containing 10 per cent ethanol blended with regular gasoline would displace 130 million litres of regular gasoline.

This is especially beneficial, considering that Manitoba’s green house gas emissions (GHG) levels are still above the 1990 Kyoto targets.

According to the 2006 report by the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, depending on the type of biofuel, ethanol can create 25 per cent more energy than is used in the creation of ethanol. Other biofuels could create up to 93 per cent more energy than the amount of energy needed to create it.

The report also mentioned that there is a 41 per cent reduction of GHG from the production and combustion of ethanol.

Besides reducing the use of gasoline and oil, biofuels offer other advantages. They do not require a drastic conversion of current automobiles in order to use them, which helps out current consumers.

Both sides of the political spectrum often agree on increasing the production and use of biofuels. In The Clean Tech Revolution, Ron Pernick and Clint Wilder note that biofuels are one of the few environmental issues that bring together a wide range of constituents from the left (environmentalists) and the right (corporations, farmers and investors).

Biofuel production has also helped economies grow, as well as create new markets in the global economy. Examples include Brazil, which has used sugar cane to help develop their biofuel industry and reduce their dependency on foreign oil. Germany now produces 936,000 tonnes of biofuel a year.

While biofuels show a lot of potential, one must consider their side effects as well.

One concern is increased food costs. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) mentioned that increased demand for biofuels in 2007 caused dramatic increases in prices for corn and soybeans. This caused spill-over effects into other agricultural products and at the same time hurt many poorer countries due to inflated food prices.

Another concern regarding biofuels include the net energy benefit (NEB) of the fuel.    Depending on the type of product, the NEB of a biofuel can range from very minimal to negative, like corn ethanol, to a higher NEB for those substances that do not include much starch, like sugar cane, and those that are not food based, like wood chips and algae.

The removal of biofuel sources can also be environmentally destructive and inefficient.

Biofuels have the potential to do a lot of good in terms of short-term environmental economic policy, but the many drawbacks of this energy source should make governments tread carefully.

Other clean technologies like wind, solar and hydro need to be developed more rapidly in the face of the planet’s ever-increasing CO2 emissions.

Adam Johnston is an economics and rhetoric and communications student at the University of Winnipeg who focuses on environmental economic, technology and poverty issues at http://moderneconomicstechnologyenvironment.wordpress.com.

Published in Volume 65, Number 21 of The Uniter (March 3, 2011)