Food Security in the Context of Liquid Biofuels Production

Krystyna Kurowska,Algirdas Jasinskas,Hubert Kryszk,Renata Marks-Bielska,Stanisław Bielski

doi:10.3390/en13236247

Krystyna Kurowska, Algirdas Jasinskas + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/en13236247

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Abstract

A crucial factor that determines the development of production and consumption markets for biofuels is the choice of raw materials that can ensure the highest possible production efficiency, the lowest cost and the smallest emission of harmful substances to the atmosphere during all production stages. Considerations underlying the development of biofuel production have been discussed as well as the theoretical mechanisms linking the generation of biofuels to the level of production and the variability of prices of agricultural raw products. The aim of this study has been to identify the scale at which energy raw materials originating from agriculture are used for liquid biofuels production and to explore their impact on food security. The study used public statistical data (OECD-FAO and IndexMundi). The time span of the analysis was from 2005 to 2018. First-generation biofuels based on food raw materials (cereal grains, root crops, sugarcane and vegetable oils) are becoming increasingly competitive with food production recent years have been a period of the dynamic growth in production of liquid biofuels. In 2018, the global production of these substances reached 167.9 billion litres (bioethanol and biodiesel together), consuming 16.1% of maize grain, 1.7% of wheat grain, 3.3% of grain of other feed grains and 13.5% of vegetable oil.

Highlights

Fossil fuels still remain the basic source of energy
The data included in the study concerned the production of bioethanol and biodiesel, production, stocks and use for bioethanol of such plant products as grains of wheat, maize, fodder cereals, sugar beet and sugar cane, as well as the use of vegetable oils for production of biodiesel
A decrease in the resources of any material entails an increase in its price, which in turn becomes an incentive to find new sources of this material or to design innovations which aim to replace it with alternative materials

Summary

Introduction

Fossil fuels still remain the basic source of energy. It can be claimed with a high degree of probability that fossil fuels are responsible for considerable amounts of emission to the atmosphere, including GHG (greenhouse gases) [1]. According to European Environment Agency (EEA) [2], the chief sector causing emission of pollutants to the air in Europe is road, air, rail and water transport. The growth in motor transport worldwide has led to a rapid increase in the demand for fuels, especially derived from crude oil. Elevated emission of greenhouse gases is caused by the combustion of fossil fuels and changes in land use due to human activity [3,4]. Alternative solutions are being searched for, especially biofuels that could compete with conventional energy carriers [5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15]

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