美国先进生物燃料技术政策与态势分析

美国是生物燃料大国,更是先进生物燃料研发强国。美国制定了宏大的生物燃料发展目标,采取了有力的政策支持措施,组织实施了生物质计划,将纤维素乙醇作为目前先进生物燃料研究、开发和示范的焦点,并已着手第三代生物燃料的研发。美国政府十分重视生物燃料的规划分析和部际协调工作,在立足于基础研究和应用研究前沿的基础上,大力推进技术示范与商业化,正努力加速向先进生物燃料转变。     

Development and status of dedicated energy crops in the United States

The biofuel industry is rapidly growing because of increasing energy demand and diminishing petroleum reserves on a global scale. A multitude of biomass resources have been investigated, with high-yielding, perennial feedstocks showing the greatest potential for utilization as advanced biofuels. Government policy and economic drivers have promoted the development and commercialization of biofuel feedstocks, conversion technologies, and supply chain logistics. Research and regulations have focused on the environmental consequences of biofuels, greatly promoting systems that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and life-cycle impacts. Numerous biofuel refineries using lignocellulosic feedstocks and biomass-based triglycerides are either in production or pre-commercial development phases. Leading candidate energy crops have been identified, yet require additional efforts to realize their full potential. Advanced biofuels, complementing conventional biofuels and other renewable energy sources such as wind and solar, provide the means to substantially displace humanity’s reliance on petroleum-based energy.     

生物燃料最新发展态势分析

第一代生物燃料的生产工艺已经较为成熟,美国、欧盟和巴西等一些国家已经形成了较完善的产业链。以纤维素乙醇为代表的第二代生物燃料是更有希望的替代燃料,但目前还未获得关键性的技术突破,其大规模的商业化生产还有待时日。目前生物燃料正处于由第一代向第二代发展过渡的初期。各国纷纷将发展第二代生物燃料定为国策,为此制订了长期的发展规划与目标,并为生物燃料发展提供了良好的政策环境和大力的经费支持。各相关研究机构与企业也积极行动,力图解决生物燃料发展的各个关键问题。在此过程中,一些与生物燃料可持续发展有关的重要问题也引起了人们的关注。     

Environmental Assessment of Wood‐Based Biofuel Production and Consumption Scenarios in Norway

In Norway, the boreal forest offers a considerable resource base, and emerging technologies may soon make it commercially viable to convert these resources into low‐carbon biofuels. Decision makers are required to make informed decisions about the environmental implications of wood biofuels today that will affect the medium‐ and long‐term development of a wood‐based biofuels industry in Norway. We first assess the national forest‐derived resource base for use in biofuel production. A set of biomass conversion technologies is then chosen and evaluated for scenarios addressing biofuel production and consumption by select industry sectors. We then apply an environmentally extended, mixed‐unit, two‐region input?output model to quantify the global warming mitigation and fossil fuel displacement potentials of two biofuel production and consumption scenarios in Norway up to 2050. We find that a growing resource base, when used to produce advanced biofuels, results in cumulative global warming mitigation potentials of between 58 and 83 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents avoided (Mt‐CO₂‐eq.‐avoided) in Norway, depending on the biofuel scenario. In recent years, however, the domestic pulp and paper industry—due to increasing exposure to international competition, capacity reductions, and increasing production costs—has been in decline. In the face of a declining domestic pulp and paper industry, imported pulp and paper products are required to maintain the demand for these goods and thus the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of the exporting region embodied in Norway's pulp and paper imports reduce the systemwide benefit in terms of avoided greenhouse gas emissions by 27%.     

Integrated Economic Equilibrium and Life Cycle Assessment Modeling for Policy‐based Consequential LCA

Consequential life cycle assessment (CLCA) has emerged as a tool for estimating environmental impacts of changes in product systems that go beyond physical relationships accounted for in attributional LCA (ALCA). This study builds on recent efforts to use more complex economic models for policy‐based CLCA. A partial market equilibrium (PME) model, called the U.S. Forest Products Module (USFPM), is combined with LCA to analyze an energy demand scenario in which wood use increases 400 million cubic meters in the United States for ethanol production. Several types of indirect economic and environmental impacts are identified and estimated using USFPM‐LCA. A key finding is that if wood use for biofuels increases to high levels and mill residue is used for biofuels and replaced by natural gas for heat and power in forest products mills, then the increased greenhouse gas emissions from natural gas could offset reductions obtained by substituting biofuels for gasoline. Such high levels of biofuel demand, however, appear to have relatively low environmental impacts across related forest product sectors.     

Health‐related Research Ethics and Social Value: Antibiotic Resistance Intervention Research and Pragmatic Risks

We consider the implications for the ethical evaluation of research programs of two fundamental changes in the revised research ethical guideline of the Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences. The first is the extension of scope that follows from exchanging “biomedical” for “health‐related” research, and the second is the new evaluative basis of “social value,” which implies new ethical requirements of research. We use the example of antibiotic resistance interventions to explore the need to consider the instances of what we term the pragmatic risks of such interventions to evaluate the social value of certain kinds of health‐related research. These (pragmatic) risks severely threaten the social value of interventions in every area where human and social responses significantly impact on their effectiveness. Thus, the social value of health‐related research needed to demonstrate its effectiveness depends on the extent and successful management of such risks. Research designed to take into account the management of pragmatic risks also gives rise to similar types of risks, and the potential for social value in light of those risks needs to be considered in ethical reviews based on the new guidelines. We argue that, to handle this new expanded task, the international system of research ethical review addressed by the guidelines needs institutional development.     

On mitigating emissions leakage under biofuel policies

A reason for much pessimism about the environmental benefits of today's biofuels, essentially corn and sugarcane ethanol, is the so‐called indirect land‐use change (ILUC) emissions associated with expanding biofuel production. While there exist several simulation‐based estimates of indirect emissions, the empirical basis underlying key input parameters to such simulations is not beyond doubt, while empirical verification of indirect emissions is hard. Regardless, regulators have adopted global warming intensity ratings for biofuels based on those simulations and in some case are holding regulated firms accountable for (some forms of) leakage. Suffice to say that both the estimates of and the approach to regulating leakage are controversial. The objective of this study is therefore to review a wider economic in order to identify a broader set of policy options for mitigating emissions leakage. We find that controlling leakage by affixing responsibility to regulated firms lacks support in the broader literature, which emphasizes alternative approaches.     

The Vulnerability of Study Participants in the Context of Transnational Biomedical Research: From Conceptual Considerations to Practical Implications

Outsourcing clinical trials sponsored by pharmaceutical companies from industrialized countries to low‐ (middle)‐income countries – summarized as transnational biomedical research (TBR) – has lead to many concerns about ethical standards. Whether study participants are particularly vulnerable is one of those concerns. However, the concept of vulnerability is still vague and varies in its definition. Despite the fact that important international ethical guidelines such as the Declaration of Helsinki by the World Medical Association or the Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical Research Involving Human Subjects by the Council of International Organizations of Medical Sciences refer to vulnerability as ethical principle, each of their approaches are different. To overcome these shortcomings, we analyze and unite different approaches of vulnerability and develop practical criteria in order to operationalize the concept especially for the context of TBR. These criteria refer to the context of a study as well as the characteristics and the current living situation of study participants. Based on a case study of an HIV‐vaccine‐trial conducted in India we demonstrate how those criteria can be applied in a retrospective way to identify potential ethical conflicts. The criteria can also indicate a prospective function for ethical pre‐assessment. For this, we provide an outlook for three major topics: 1. Vulnerability as a normative concept: Different ways of protection; 2. The relevance of transparency and 3. Vulnerability as an instrument to increase decision participation of human subjects.     

BIOETHICS AND DEMOCRACY: COMPETING ROLES OF NATIONAL BIOETHICS ORGANISATIONS

In establishing National Bioethics Organisations (NBOs), liberal democracies seek to acknowledge the diversity of strongly held ethical positions and the imperative to engage in public debate about important bioethical decisions. NBOs are typically given a range of responsibilities, including contributing to and stimulating public debate; providing expert opinion on relevant issues for policy deliberations; and developing public policy. The state is now found to have an interest in areas previously thought to be a matter of individual choice. NBOs can provide one way of opening up public debate to allow the diversity of views to be heard in a manner that is well‐informed, articulate and responsive to both expert and ‘lay’ public views. We draw on debates in political theory about democratic decision‐making and on the policy making roles of some key NBOs. We are particularly interested in examining the capacity of NBOs to meet the democratic ideal of effective participation by the public, or citizenry, especially by those who are directly affected by the policies, in the development of effective public policy. We provide a basic framework for policy development involving NBOs that can begin to meet this ideal, a process of ‘contested deliberation’.     

Biofuels agriculture: landscape‐scale trade‐offs between fuel,economics, carbon,energy, food,and fiber

First‐generation biofuels are an existing, scalable form of renewable energy of the type urgently required to mitigate climate change. In this study, we assessed the potential benefits, costs, and trade‐offs associated with biofuels agriculture to inform bioenergy policy. We assessed different climate change and carbon subsidy scenarios in an 11.9 million ha (5.48 million ha arable) region in southern Australia. We modeled the spatial distribution of agricultural production, full life‐cycle net greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and net energy, and economic profitability for both food agriculture (wheat, legumes, sheep rotation) and biofuels agriculture (wheat, canola rotation for ethanol/biodiesel production). The costs, benefits, and trade‐offs associated with biofuels agriculture varied geographically, with climate change, and with the level of carbon subsidy. Below we describe the results in general and provide (in parentheses) illustrative results under historical mean climate and a carbon subsidy of A$20 t^?1 CO₂^?e. Biofuels agriculture was more profitable over an extensive area (2.85 million ha) of the most productive arable land and produced large quantities of biofuels (1.7 GL yr^?1). Biofuels agriculture substantially increased economic profit (145.8 million $A yr^?1 or 30%), but had only a modest net GHG abatement (?2.57 million t CO₂^?e yr^?1), and a negligible effect on net energy production (?0.11 PJ yr^?1). However, food production was considerably reduced in terms of grain (?3.04 million t yr^?1) and sheep meat (?1.89 million head yr^?1). Wool fiber production was also substantially reduced (?23.19 kt yr^?1). While biofuels agriculture can produce short‐term benefits, it also has costs, and the vulnerability of biofuels to climatic warming and drying renders it a myopic strategy. Nonetheless, in some areas the profitability of biofuels agriculture is robust to variation in climate and level of carbon subsidy and these areas may form part of a long‐term diversified mix of land‐use solutions to climate change if trade‐offs can be managed.     

Global relative species loss due to first‐generation biofuel production for the transport sector

The global demand for biofuels in the transport sector may lead to significant biodiversity impacts via multiple human pressures. Biodiversity assessments of biofuels, however, seldom simultaneously address several impact pathways, which can lead to biased comparisons with fossil fuels. The goal of the present study was to quantify the direct influence of habitat loss, water consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions on potential global species richness loss due to the current production of first‐generation biodiesel from soybean and rapeseed and bioethanol from sugarcane and corn. We found that the global relative species loss due to biofuel production exceeded that of fossil petrol and diesel production in more than 90% of the locations considered. Habitat loss was the dominating stressor with Chinese corn, Brazilian soybean and Brazilian sugarcane having a particularly large biodiversity impact. Spatial variation within countries was high, with 90th percentiles differing by a factor of 9 to 22 between locations. We conclude that displacing fossil fuels with first‐generation biofuels will likely negatively affect global biodiversity, no matter which feedstock is used or where it is produced. Environmental policy may therefore focus on the introduction of other renewable options in the transport sector.     

Maßgeschneiderte Mikroorganismen

Tailor‐made microorganisms Microbial diversity provides unlimited resources for the development of novel industrial processes and products. Since the beginning of the 20th century microorganisms have been successfully applied for the large scale production of bio‐based products. In recent years, modern methods of strain development and Synthetic Biology have enabled biotech engineers to design even more sophisticated and tailor‐made microorganisms. These microbes serve industrial processes for the production of bulk chemicals, enzymes, polymers, biofuels as well as plant‐derived ingredients such as Artemisinin in an ecologically and economically sustainable and attractive fashion. In the future, production of advanced biofuels, microbial fuel cells, CO₂ as feedstock and microbial cellulose are research topics as well as challenges of global importance. Continuous efforts in microbiology and biotechnology research will be pivotal for white biotechnology to gain more momentum in transforming the chemical industry towards a knowledge based bio‐economy.     

Values-led conservation

In international nature conservation policy, value‐arguments based on science and economic rationalism increasingly overshadow the aesthetic and ethical arguments that originally inspired the conservation movement. We argue that this trend risks removing conservation from the public realm, in part because it facilitates the adoption by nongovernment conservation bodies of corporate values and/or their integration with government bureaucracies. By contrast, the explicit recognition of aesthetic and ethical values would complement arguments based on science and economic utility. We subscribe to a reformist view of globalization that accepts the inevitability of a globalizing world but argues that the process needs humanizing by incorporating quality of life values in the policy process. We argue that re‐emphasis of aesthetic and ethical arguments in international conservation policy would contribute to this goal by reasserting links between conservation bodies and the public, thereby leading to more effective action on the ground.     

Biofuels are dead: long live biofuels(?) – part two

Whilst obsessing over the policy catastrophe surrounding biofuels, we could easily lose sight of the prospects for science and technology to increase the sustainability of biofuel production by orders of magnitude. Part two of this feature examines the research and development of more sustainable biofuels.     

HUMAN DIGNITY IN INTERNATIONAL POLICY DOCUMENTS: A USEFUL CRITERION FOR PUBLIC POLICY?

Current developments in biomedicine are presenting us with difficult ethical decisions and raising complex policy questions about how to regulate these new developments. Particularly vexing for governments have been issues related to human embryo experimentation. Because some of the most promising biomedical developments, such as stem cell research and nuclear somatic transfer, involve such experimentation, several international bodies have drafted documents aimed to provide guidance to governments when developing biomedical science policy. Here I focus on two such documents: the Council of Europe's Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being and the Additional Protocol to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being. I argue that by using human dignity as a criterion to determine the permissibility of particular human embryo research practices, these documents cannot aid in identifying research that would be contrary to human dignity. Thus, they fail to guide public policy on embryo experimentation. Their use of human dignity as a criterion makes their task of offering guidance unfeasible because the concept as used in these documents is too vague and is applied in contradictory ways. I discuss the main goals of these documents and their claims in relation to human embryo research. I then discuss how they have influenced public policy in several countries. Finally, I show that although these Council of Europe treaties attempt to serve as public policy guides in the area of embryo research, they fail to do so.     

The European Union and the Marine Strategy Framework Directive: Continuing the Development of European Ocean Use Management

The European Union has been engaged in an effort to develop a marine strategy to protect the marine environment and a more encompassing integrated maritime policy that would provide a comprehensive system for the management of the uses of the marine areas of Europe. An earlier article by the author described the beginnings of this policy development; this article examines the subsequent 2008 Directive of the European Parliament and the Council, which establishes a framework for community action in the field of marine environmental policy. The Marine Strategy Framework Directive provides a plan of action with designated responsibilities and obligations and a schedule that is to be adhered to by member states and the European Commission. It represents a significant step in the European endeavor to advance ocean use management and sets the stage for future development of European marine policy.     

The President's Council on Bioethics 2002-2004: an overview

The President's Council on Bioethics, headed by Leon Kass, was created by President George W. Bush to advise the President on issues of ethical import raised by advances in biomedical science. Between 2002 and 2004, members of the Council from diverse disciplines addressed topics such as human cloning, stem cell research, assisted reproduction, and medical interventions intended to enhance human capability or appearance. This article provides background on the Council and reviews its published reports. It also considers key definitions and distinctions, specific recommendations of the Council, and positions articulated by members who contributed to the development of its reports.     

A review of thermochemical upgrading of pyrolysis bio‐oil: Techno‐economic analysis,life cycle assessment,and technology readiness

Technologies for upgrading fast pyrolysis bio‐oil to drop‐in fuels and coproducts are under development and show promise for decarbonizing energy supply for transportation and chemicals markets. The successful commercialization of these fuels and the technologies deployed to produce them depend on production costs, scalability, and yield. To meet environmental regulations, pyrolysis‐based biofuels need to adhere to life cycle greenhouse gas intensity standards relative to their petroleum‐based counterparts. We review literature on fast pyrolysis bio‐oil upgrading and explore key metrics that influence their commercial viability through life cycle assessment (LCA) and techno‐economic analysis (TEA) methods together with technology readiness level (TRL) evaluation. We investigate the trade‐offs among economic, environmental, and technological metrics derived from these methods for individual technologies as a means of understanding their nearness to commercialization. Although the technologies reviewed have not attained commercial investment, some have been pilot tested. Predicting the projected performance at scale‐up through models can, with industrial experience, guide decision‐making to competitively meet energy policy goals. LCA and TEA methods that ensure consistent and reproducible models at a given TRL are needed to compare alternative technologies. This study highlights the importance of integrated analysis of multiple economic, environmental, and technological metrics for understanding performance prospects and barriers among early stage technologies.     

Exploring the emergence of a biojet fuel supply chain in Brazil: An agent‐based modeling approach

The aviation industry accounts for more than 2% of global CO₂ emissions. Biojet fuel is expected to make an essential contribution to the decarbonization of the aviation sector. Brazil is seen as a key player in developing sustainable aviation biofuels owing to its long‐standing experience with biofuels. Nevertheless, a clear understanding of what policies may be conducive to the emergence of a biojet fuel supply chain is lacking. We extended a spatially explicit agent‐based model to explore the emergence of a biojet fuel supply chain from the existing sugarcane–ethanol supply chain. The model accounts for new policies (feed‐in tariff and capital investment subsidy) and new considerations into the decision making about production and investment in processing capacity. We found that in a tax‐free gasoline regime, a feed‐in tariff above 3 R$/L stimulates the production of biojet fuel. At higher levels of gasoline taxation (i.e., 2.46 R$/L), however, any feed‐in tariff is insufficient to ensure the production of biojet fuel. Thus, at these levels of gasoline taxation, it is needed to introduce regulations on the production of biojet fuel to ensure its production. Given the current debate about the future direction of the biofuel policy in Brazil, we recommend further research into the effect of market mechanisms based on greenhouse gas emissions on the emergence of a Brazilian biojet fuel supply chain.