[Peakoil] Sixty Minutes on biofuels

[Alex Pollard]

http://sixtyminutes.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=644838

Reporter: Liz Hayes

Producer: Nick Greenaway 
Who'd have thought it, common old sugar cane and corn could save us all. 
Save us from soaring oil prices, and from a lot of those dreaded greenhouse 
gases. 

On the surface it seems so simple, first convert the crops to ethanol. Then 
make an easy, safe and cheap adjustment to your car engine, we’re talking 
less than $800, and you’re away. 

This is no futuristic dream. 

In America, farmers are fast becoming the new fuel barons. 

In Brazil, cars have been running happily on ethanol for years and wait 
till you see what it's done for pollution in the world's third largest 
city. 

But, and it's a big one, there is a hidden price to pay.

Full transcript: 



LIZ HAYES: Sugar cane is one of Australia's iconic crops. For more than 200 
years, we've been burning, cutting, and milling it, turning it into 
molasses and sugar. But, now, it's being turned into something a whole lot 
more valuable. 

DAVID LAMB, SCIENTIST: This is the ethanol that we're talking about mixing 
with petroleum to fuel our transport. 

LIZ HAYES: This is it - this is ethanol? Pure - 

DAVID LAMB: It is pure ethanol. 

LIZ HAYES: Smells like rocket fuel! 

DAVID LAMB: Drink it and it is rocket fuel, I promise you, Liz! 

LIZ HAYES: I could power more than my car, I suspect. 

DAVID LAMB: Let's try it! (LAUGHS) 

LIZ HAYES: Biofuels are the new boom, turning crops into fuel. Former CSIRO 
executive David Lamb believes sugar cane could help save Australia from a 
major energy crisis. 

DAVID LAMB: Yes, I think ethanol is important because it's the most 
immediately available, and I think it could make an enormous contribution 
in what could be a time of great crisis in our transport fuel dilemma. 

LIZ HAYES: Australia's own oil reserves are fast running out. The price of 
petrol has doubled in the past five years and our major cities are 
regularly choked by smog. We simply can't sustain our oil-dependant lives. 

DAVID LAMB: In the worst case, oil could be as expensive as $8.00 a litre 
by 2018. It's the worst scenario but it shows we better do something to 
make sure that, within five years, we've got some alternatives. 

LIZ HAYES: So there's a crisis on the way? 

DAVID LAMB: There's a crisis because we are so totally dependent on oil 
and, without that oil, our lifestyle falls apart completely. 

LIZ HAYES: If sugar cane is part of the solution to our fuel crisis, then 
we in Australia should be thanking our lucky stars. After all, this stuff 
has been the crop of choice for generations in Queensland and northern NSW. 
It is said to be the fastest growing plant on the planet. Up until now, 
we've been eating it and drinking it. Now, it seems time we turn it into 
fuel for our cars and, if we don't, well, according to the experts - more 
fool us. But far from embracing this clean, green alternative, for years 
car manufacturers and oil executives have convinced Australians that 
ethanol was the enemy and could ruin your engine. 

DAVID LAMB: When ethanol was first mooted the reaction was, "Will it damage 
my car?" And I'm afraid the car industry wasn't terribly helpful here 
because the reaction from the official representatives of the industry 
was, "If you use ethanol it will void your warranty." Well, that's enough 
to scare anybody off from using ethanol. 

SYDNEY MILLS, AUTO ENGINEER: If I damage your car, I'll give you a brand 
new one. 

LIZ HAYES: Auto engineer Sydney Mills believes Australians have been misled 
about ethanol. So, you think it's better than petrol? 

SYDNEY MILLS: It is. It is. It is. 

LIZ HAYES: He's converted this car to run happily on 100% ethanol... ..and 
it's easier than you might think. 

SYDNEY MILLS: Inside the box, what we can have, is an electronic system 
here and we have small microprocessor. 

LIZ HAYES: And it's telling the car there's ethanol on board? 

SYDNEY MILLS: Exactly. 

LIZ HAYES: A simple black box is hooked up to the fuel injection system for 
around $800. 

SYDNEY MILLS: Now it's connected. You can see how easy it is. 

LIZ HAYES: And, at two-thirds the price of petrol, you're saving money the 
moment you leave the garage. 

SYDNEY MILLS: Australia, in terms of biofuels, is the promised land. It's a 
country that has everything. 

LIZ HAYES: Sydney should know. He comes from the world's ethanol 
superpower, Brazil. Here, 3.5 million hectares of sugar cane are harvested 
for fuel every year. Simple as that? Sweet. South America's biggest country 
has been literally running on sugar for over 30 years. Where Australia has 
2 ethanol plants, Brazil has 340. This year they will pump out 25 billion 
litres of ethanol. 

EDUARDO LEAO DE SOUSA, CEO UNICA:: This plant should not be called 'sugar 
cane' but 'energy cane', and it's funny because, at the same time, it's a 
very old crop but it's so modern with so much technology being developed 
and to be developed - it's absolutely impressive. 

LIZ HAYES: Eduardo Leao de Sousa is the boss of Unica, the sugar cane 
industry's peak body. In Australia, ethanol has an image problem. People 
are frightened of it, they think it's inferior. How do you convince them 
that it's not? 

EDUARDO LEAO DE SOUSA: Well, first thing, I would invite them to come to 
Brazil and learn more about the experience. We've been uh, testing this 
fuel for 30 years. 

LIZ HAYES: And the proof is literally in the air. Sao Paulo is the third 
largest city in the world, with 20 million people, and a traffic nightmare 
to match. But the air is amazingly clean now that all cars must run on a 
minimum of 25% ethanol. Almost every new car runs on 100% ethanol. You were 
ultimately the guinea pigs. 

EDUARDO LEAO DE SOUSA: Yeah. 

LIZ HAYES: You did the test run for the rest of the world. 

EDUARDO LEAO DE SOUSA: That's right. 

LIZ HAYES: And the rest of the world is now following Brazil's lead. No 
more so than the greatest gas-guzzling nation on earth - America. Here, the 
ethanol industry is powered, not by sugar cane, but by corn. There's corn 
for miles, Gerald. 

GERALD TUMBLESON, FARMER: There's a lot of corn. I love corn - the more 
corn the better! 

LIZ HAYES: Not so long ago, it used to be corn-fed pigs bringing home the 
bacon for farmers like Gerald Tumbleson. Now it's corn-fed cars. America 
has recently taken over Brazil as the largest ethanol producer in the 
world. Do you think corn will become the new petrol in the bowser? 

GERALD TUMBLESON: Corn is the new petrol right now. 

LIZ HAYES: You've suddenly hit pay dirt. 

GERALD TUMBLESON: Well, dirt's - pay soil! 

LIZ HAYES: You've hit gold. 

GERALD TUMBLESON: Yes, we have. 

LIZ HAYES: This year, nearly half of all the corn America produces will be 
converted into fuel. Is it a concern then that if corn becomes so valuable 
in terms of turning it into fuel that people will just grow corn for fuel? 

GERALD TUMBLESON: Well, yeah, that would be a concern. Oh, I would - I 
would not raise it for that. No, no. 

LIZ HAYES: But the possibility is there that that could happen? 

GERALD TUMBLESON: No, not for a long time. 

LIZ HAYES: So, is the ethanol story too good to be true? Well, according to 
some scientists, it is. Turning food into fuel comes at a real price. For 
years, the Amazon rainforest has suffered at the hands of man. But, 
ironically, it is the clean, green biofuel industry that could cause it the 
most damage. The biofuels boom is soaking up so much of the world's arable 
land, it's being blamed for a world food shortage. And, with America and 
Brazil's massive demand for ethanol crops growing, the ripple effect is 
being felt here, in the rainforest. Farmers are carving deep into the 
Amazon to grow much-needed food. 

BILL LAURANCE, SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTE: The Amazon's currently being knocked 
down at a rate of about, just in Brazil, about seven football fields a 
minute - about 1.7 million hectares a year. And, to put that in, say, for 
example, Australian terms, Brazil is currently destroying an area the size 
of the wet tropics world heritage area in North Queensland about every six 
months. 

LIZ HAYES: And that's a direct result of biofuels? 

BILL LAURANCE: Biofuels is part of the story. It's not the only thing - 
there's other factors as well. But, clearly, biofuels are contributing to 
the destruction of the Amazon. 

LIZ HAYES: Tropical ecologist Bill Laurance, from the Smithsonian 
Institute, is in awe of the Amazon. It's vast and it's beautiful. His fear 
is - for how much longer? And do we truly risk losing it? 

BILL LAURANCE: Absolutely! You bet we risk losing it. It's being lost right 
now. 

LIZ HAYES: So, I guess this is what you've been talking about? 

BILL LAURANCE: Yeah. Just a few years ago this would have all been tropical 
rainforest, you know, as far as you can see in this huge, sort of, scorched 
landscape. Of course, all the biodiversity is gone. I mean, there is 
nothing that lives in this kind of, sort of, ecological Armageddon out 
here. Earth worms - I mean that's about the only thing this has got any 
conservation value for. The forest itself has been fragmented, it's been 
chopped up into pieces and this creates all kinds of ecological problems 
for species - the jaguars, the pumas, the harpy eagles, the monkeys. Many 
species just can't survive. 

LIZ HAYES: And, just tell me, why did they bother keeping this tree? 

BILL LAURANCE: It's protected, they have to save that one. 

LIZ HAYES: That's just ridiculous! They wiped everything out but they 
observed one rule? 

BILL LAURANCE: That's right. It's legal to nuke the surrounding landscape, 
you just have to save that Brazil nut tree. 

DAVID LAMB: This could be a big opportunity, provided we tick all the 
environmental boxes, but we need to explore it seriously. 

LIZ HAYES: There is no easy fix, but the world is facing an inevitable fuel 
crisis and ethanol, for all its faults, offers a solution. 

DAVID LAMB: We have all been lazy, all of us, because we've been reluctant 
to, to recognise the crisis that's heading towards us and we've been 
reluctant to really bite the bullet and do something serious about it.