Malawi’s trees

A vital aspect of COP21 is understanding how the world can mitigate against increasing CO2 levels. One way is to reduce reliance on carbon-based energy sources. The other solution is to improve carbon sinks.

Malawi is not a country you hear much about. It is a country which struggles to provide energy to all its population - only 10% are connected to the grid; however, 90% of the electricity generation in Malawi is produced by a very unreliable system of hydroelectric power stations.

Those who do not have electricity depend on firewood. Depend isn't a strong enough word. Malawi has one of the highest deforestation rate globally. This has had massive impacts on the environment: reduced impact of CO2 sinks, soil erosion and reduced soil infiltration. The lack of groundwater recharge promotes surface runoff and increases river discharge, ultimately causing flooding and impacting the reliability of hydroelectric power plants.

Deforestation is highly prevalent (Source)

The solution: more coal. Total emissions of Malawi are predicted to increase by 38% by 2040. But they haven't ignored the INDCs. Mitigation against the coal power plants will include deforestation, increased 'clean' cookstove usage, and increased utilisation of solar (with help from the clean carbon find).

Although this isn't the best way forward (in my opinion), Malawi has a desire to develop. To do this, they need reliable power generation.

The human impacts of deforestation have heavily impacted the potential for renewables. Solar, although very under utilised, has great potential in Malawi. The current decision is simple, wood or coal. Do we save the forests and improve the production and potential of hydroelectric power, or do we continue deforesting regions of Malawi because wood burning has a lower CO2 level than coal?

*This blog will be edited when I get to a computer... I am currently on a plane using my phone, so more links and images will be added later*

Edit: links and images have been added! There is also a short blog series on deforestation in Malawi which might be of interest.

Growing the solution?

In my previous post, I discussed a news article regarding the future of Britain's energy status. As with many EU states, the UK has pledged a reduction in CO2 emissions by 80% compared to 1990 levels by 2050. Many of the solutions which have and will be discussed will need to be implemented.

Whether or not the DECC's time, resources and energy has been entirely focused is debatable (and if your focus is strained at all whist reading this, you too can procrastinate by playing their carbon reduction game)! If you prefer a direct, informative (and less interactive and fun, in my opinion) understanding of how the government will approach its carbon targets, then the 2050 Pathway analysis is a great indulgence!

The aim of the game is to reduce, prevent, or reverse our CO2 emissions. There are various means we can do this, but ultimately it means moving to low- or no-carbon solutions. One fantastic solution which is carbon-negative are biofuels.

So biofuels! Biofuels are an interesting addition to the analysis report. I personally do not see the advantage of biofuels, they take away land which could be used for food security. Within the report, biofuels play a large role in mitigating against transport emissions, without the need for technological innovation in the form of electric cars and fuel cells, i.e. a low tech, low carbon solution. In industry, they could play a role, provided they produce enough energy for production.

Before writing this, my naïvety of biofuels extended to a romanticised image of wheat or another cereal crop growing under a blue sky...

Never a grey sky with biofuels.. (Source)

Although this is not far from the truth, this less beautiful and more informative image from the report gives a much fuller understanding of the alternative (and less glamorous) sources of biofuels.

A summary of biomass sources and processes for conversion to biofuels (Source: p148)

As you can imagine, this put a dent in my simplified understanding of biofuels. There are various sources? And different types of biomass? An hour of scanning various articles and abstracts on the topic, I came across a nice piece of analysis on the impacts of biofuels on land exploitation and the wider carbon cycle by Fargione et al (2008). 

It turns out the government's approach to biofuels to reduce carbon emissions depends heavily on the source of the biomass. Clearing rainforests, grasslands and other productive biomes for biocrop production creates up to 17 to 420 times more CO2 than the fuels that it replaces (so much for a negative-carbon fuel!). However, the analysis does acknowledge that biofuel production from food waste or abandoned farmland would have little or no CO2 impact, and could become a carbon negative fuel source in some cases.

Biofuels are interesting, it seems. They have the potential for being a sustainable source of energy for the future. We could quite literally grow our own energy! But the sources and overall environmental impact really need to be fully considered before opting for mass adoption of biofuels. Also, I think there might be a few petroleum companies, not to mention a few people in the Treasury that might have something else to say about biofuels...