Biofuels and the role of space in sustainable innovation journeys

Abstract

This paper aims to identify the lessons that should be learnt from how biofuels have been envisioned from the aftermath of the oil shocks of the 1970s to the present, and how these visions compare with biofuel production networks emerging in the 2000s. Working at the interface of sustainable innovation journey research and geographical theories on the spatial unevenness of sustainability transition projects, we show how the biofuels controversy is linked to characteristics of globalised industrial agricultural systems. The legitimacy problems of biofuels cannot be addressed by sustainability indicators or new technologies alone since they arise from the spatial ordering of biofuel production. In the 1970–80s, promoters of bioenergy anticipated current concerns about food security implications but envisioned bioenergy production to be territorially embedded at national or local scales where these issues would be managed. Where the territorial and scalar vision was breached, it was to imagine poorer countries exporting higher-value biofuel to the North rather than the raw material as in the controversial global biomass commodity chains of today. However, controversy now extends to the global impacts of national biofuel systems on food security and greenhouse gas emissions, and to their local impacts becoming more widely known. South/South and North/North trade conflicts are also emerging as are questions over biodegradable wastes and agricultural residues as global commodities. As assumptions of a food-versus-fuel conflict have come to be challenged, legitimacy questions over global agri-business and trade are spotlighted even further. In this context, visions of biofuel development that address these broader issues might be promising. These include large-scale biomass-for-fuel models in Europe that would transform global trade rules to allow small farmers in the global South to compete, and small-scale biofuel systems developed to address local energy needs in the South.

Bioeconomy Strategies: Contexts, Visions, Guiding Implementation Principles and Resulting Debates

“…It remains uncertain whether efficiency gains, cascading use, residue use and sustainability certification will be sufficient to avoid new conflicts. In addition, potential conflicts depend on future spatial arrangements and assessment of global biomass commodity chains [158]. Finally, events not directly connected with the activities in the framework of the bioeconomy strategies, such as the food crisis in 2007/2008, could in the future trigger new opposition.…”

The role of transnational dimensions in emerging economy ‘Technological Innovation Systems’ for clean-tech

“…The formation of TIS for both first and second generation biofuels for transport is subject to a well-developed global market for biofuels, with biofuel production concentrated in a small number of countries (Lamers et al, 2011;Raman and Mohr). The Dutch wind power TIS is often perceived as having failed to mature due to the lack of a domestic manufacturing industry (e.g., Kamp et al, 2004).…”

A Social Licence for Science: Capturing the Public or Co-Constructing Research?

“…This international community was grounded in connections with a key social system (agriculture) on which bioenergy depends as well as the system of energy. By contrast to the present, where a large part of the biofuels controversy arises from the nature of global North/South linkages with the poorer South serving as supplier of raw materials for consumption in the richer North, this earlier tradition of work envisaged a strongly territorial system (countries weaning from their dependence on oil imports with domestic biomass as an alternative source of energy) except where poorer countries might actually be in a position to export higher value-added products (Raman and Mohr 2013) rather than just raw materials in a way that perpetuates the 'resource curse' as it has come to be known in development circles.…”

“…By contrast, the domain of bioenergy research we have been investigating (Raman and Mohr 2013) offers a glimmer of a scenario for imagining what a co-construction of research agendas by science and society might look like as opposed to a one-sided 'capture' of the public. Biofuels, particularly those derived from food crops, have recently been described by environmental and development organizations as a crime against humanity (BBC 2007) and a big green con (Farrar 2010) for diverting biomass from food to fuel, damage to biodiversity and increases in greenhouse gas emissions despite being positioned as a sustainable alternative to fossil fuels.…”

“…We also draw on lessons from empirical research reported elsewhere on two different cases of what might be seen as ways of making science social: a national dialogue on stem cell research that was held by UK research councils in 2008 (Mohr and Raman 2012) and the early history of research on bioenergy as a sustainable alternative to fossil fuels (Raman and Mohr 2013).…”