The Jury is Still Out on Biofuels, Scientists Say

When the Suncor Energy Inc. plant in Port Moody, BC, spilled 225 barrels of R100 biodiesel fuel, Suncor spokespeople couldn’t answer what was arguably the most pressing question: how will the spill affect the environment? The substance spilled was odourless and colourless, and most of it stayed on land at the Suncor plant while a small amount hit the waters of the Burrard Inlet.

While emissions from biofuels may do less harm to the environment than those of conventional fuels, executive director of BC Sustainable Energy Association Nigel Protter cautions against jumping to the conclusion that biofuels are safer because it’s biodegradable. Just because a substance may be less toxic than conventional fuel, he says, doesn’t mean it should be treated as if it’s harmless.

“The carbon neutral footprint doesn’t mean the substance itself doesn’t have an impact on the things with which it comes in contact.”

The logic behind biofuels, Protter said, is that instead of burning carbon that has been tucked deep underground for millions of years—fossil fuels or what Protter refers to as epochal carbon—it burns matter whose carbon dioxide would have be released anyway when that organism died.

“Fuel burning in an engine is just a very rapid form of the same things that happens when any carbon-based biological creature or plant decomposes,” he said. Whether it’s a blade of grass that lasts a year or a tree that lasts a hundreds or more, eventually those things will release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

“That carbon is going in and out of the biosphere constantly,” Protter said, but added that the jury is still out on the long-term viability of biofuels, and in some cases, the evidence comes down against it.

The spill in Port Moody was small in the grand scheme of oil spills, but there are other, less direct environmental considerations to make when it comes to evaluating biofuels. Much of it is made from palm oil, a material that requires the clearing of large swaths of rainforest as well as the use of land that would otherwise be available for growing food, particularly in developing countries.

Kevin Ganshorn, a biologist with Ecofish Research Ltd., said there’s a reason the answer to question of environmental impact is hard to come by. It doesn’t fully exist yet. He said it’s extremely common for chemicals to be introduced into daily life with little assurance they’re safe for the environment.

“Every year there are hundreds if not thousands of new chemicals synthesized and being used for various applications with very little study done on the toxicity of the materials.” He said studies are typically far from comprehensive in scope.

“They’re generally limited to laboratory studies with one or two species and there are a lot of potential problems with that,” he said. Different species respond in different ways substances, and the specific ecosystems in which those substances appear also have an impact. “The toxicity of chemicals are often mediated by the condition under which animal or wildlife are exposed to it,” he said. “Local chemistry may reduce the toxic effect and sometimes it can increase it.”

He said that, for most chemicals, we generally know very little about the toxicity and yet continue to use them. The reasons for this gap in knowledge are the usual suspects and include time, money and the difficulty of tests.

“To be able to infer what will happen in the environment is something incredibly difficult to do and incredibly difficult to monitor,” he said. As a result, studies are generally limited as scientist work toward better ways of predicting toxicity in the environment.

“The original model they used was developed 20 years ago and there’s still debate about how effective it is,” Granshorn said, adding that he has been involved in reviewing an assessment model that could be used to test for toxicity associated with the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline project.

He said it’s also common for the public at large to make assumptions about the safety of certain chemicals thanks to the connotations of certain buzzwords.

“Many products out there have bio or eco attached to their marketing, and it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s something that will not have any harmful effects.” Consumers are learning to be skeptical of companies’ attempts at green washing household products like dish soap and printer paper. Why should people be any less critical of the labels on products used to make the big things run?

He echoed Protter’s sentiments regarding the word biodegradable and the false sense of security it can impart.

“Even if it is biodegradable, if it’s biodegradable and highly toxic, the biodegradable aspect becomes somewhat less relevant if there’s a large spill.”