BIOMASS INTEL

Biofuels must contend with a host of limiting resource factors both abroad and domestic.  Here are three resource conflicts looming ahead.

Resource wars are the inevitable result of the growing strain placed on limited natural resources throughout the world.

As Michael T. Klare notes, within strategic policy circles, environmental and resource effects — rather than political orientation and ideology — are increasingly being viewed as the most potent source of armed conflict in the decades to come.  Resource wars are less about Samuel Huntington’s civilization clashes and more about fundamental access to food, water, and shelter…and the means to get more of all three.

Resource pressures are made more acute by many factors, most notably: population growth, desertification, global consumption, and energy scarcity.   Many of these pressures are exacerbated by climate change, which is predicted to have a destabilizing impact on many of the world’s poorest countries.

Paraphrasing a 2003 Pentagon study entitled An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security (PDF available here), Klare notes:

The greatest danger posed by global climate change is not the degradation of ecosystems per se, but rather the disintegration of entire human societies, producing wholesale starvation, mass migrations and recurring conflict over resources.  What is clear is that persistent and violent conflict over increasingly scarce resources is here to stay.

Experts predict that climate change effects will be felt primarily in the world’s poorest countries, where degradation of agricultural land and lack of fresh water access will lead to political instability and a growing number of so-called “climate refugees.”  Wealthier nations will have to contend with increasing competition over scarcer resources distributed unevenly throughout the world.

To realize its full potential, the biofuels industry will have to navigate these realities.  As we have already seen, if energy crops are seen in any way as contributing to water scarcity, rising food prices, deforestation, or the displacement of indigenous communities, there may be a backlash that would set the development of biofuel production back years, even decades.

Below are 3 resource constraints that could lead to armed conflict, and in the process, make or break biofuels:

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1)  Fresh Water Access

Fresh water access is viewed as the next major resource conflict, following oil-related conflict in magnitude and prevalence.  “Peak water” — the notion that we have or will reach a point at which water demand exceeds the rate at which supply can be replenished — is viewed as inevitable given the current rate of extraction.  Water demand already exceeds supply in many parts of the world, and as the world population continues to increase, many more areas are expected to experience this imbalance in the near future.  The BBC provides a useful look into water “stress” throughout the world through 2070 here.

Although fresh water is a renewable resource, the world’s supply of clean water is steadily decreasing.  Agriculture represents 70 percent of fresh water use worldwide.  According to Dr. Peter Gleick, President of the Pacific Institute and one of the world’s preeminent water experts:

Humans already appropriate over 50% of all renewable and accessible fresh water flows, and yet billions still lack the most basic water services.

According to the Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture, roughly 1.2 billion people live in areas affected by water scarcity, where water resources are not enough to meet growing needs.  This leaves little room for dedicated energy crops, which justifies the growing emphasis on low-water-input biofuel crops.  Enter jatropha, camelina, and sorghum.

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2)  Agricultural Land

Biofuels have triggered increased competition over land resources throughout the world.  Grain, an international charity organization supporting poor farmers, argues that governments and biofuel firms in developing countries are collaborating to push hundreds of thousands of indigenous people and peasant communities off their land.

The quest for agricultural capacity and biofuel “farms” has led to a new era of colonialism that, left unchecked, could have a serious impact on world food production.  More and more national governments are winning or purchasing concessions throughout the world, often at the expense of local production.  A recent ruling in Malaysia, which held that local communities have native customary rights over land claimed as state land for the purposes of establishing palm plantations, is a rarity.

The competition between food crops and fuel crops, on one hand, and local interests and multinationals, on the other, poses serious risks for biofuel producers.  As local populations are increasingly driven from their native lands history has shown that armed conflict is often an inevitable result.

Asking what is the best way to start a civil conflict today?, Liz Aldon Wily writing  for the Rights and Resources Initiative (PDF available here), explains:

First, operate in an agrarian state. This is a country where most of the population depends upon land, not jobs, for survival.  Then curtail their rights to those resources; land, forests, pastures, rangelands and wetlands…Then, add to this the ‘needs’ of the State and its associated elites with their deep pockets.  Lease this land to loggers, miners, rubber or other plantation companies, and especially now, commercial food and bio-fuel producers.  Best if you can back this up with a contract which will hold under international law, and even better to back in up with a State to State agreement.

Food scarcity is increasingly seen as a destablizing factor throughout the world.  Biofuel crops must demonstrate the ability to work with dedicated food crops.  So-called second-generation and advanced biofuel technologies must emphasize this reality.

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3)  Energy Security

Access to energy resources, namely oil, will have a direct influence on how quickly the biofuels industry grows.  Whether to drive investment in energy crop production through sustained high prices and national legislation enacted in the name of domestic energy security, or to retard biofuel production through price volatility, which could lead to subsidy ficklenss (see biodiesel tax credit), the success of biofuels will be tied directly to the price of oil.

Energy security, or lack there of, will have a direct impact on fresh water access and agricultural land as well.  Not only does energy enable the distribution of water resources and augment the productive capacity of agricultural lands, acute supply constraints will initiate unproductive, and potentially perilous, biofuel production booms.  Often, as is the case with corn ethanol in the US, a rush to exploit crops for their energy potential comes at the expense of scarce water resources and dedicated food crops.

Energy supply constraints have already initiated a push to convert the US Military to biofuels and biomass-derived fuels.  The US Navy signed an MOU with the USDA last week to establish a Green Strike Group composed of nuclear vessels and ships powered by biofuel and the US Air Force is already exploring advanced jet fuels.  With security interests shifting increasingly towards biofuels, more pressure will be placed on existing land and water resources to produce an adequate supply of renewable fuel.