According to the imaginations of biofuel cornucopians, because all living biological stocks, whether crops or plants, are infinitely renewable throughput, the world could have infinite quantities of biofuels year after year, and, by extension, the crisis of overaccumulation of capital would be resolved. To be sure, the combination of the fear of petroleum depletion and the overly sanguine anticipation of biofuels becoming a substitute for or complementary to fossil fuels has been driving the growth of liquid biofuel production. Global bioethanol production rose from 38.2 billion liters in 2006 to 89 billion liters in 2008, and biodiesel production increased from 4 billion to 12 billion liters over the same period. Early on, energy analysts projected that the global market value for first-generation biofuels would grow from $20.5 billion in 2006 to $80.9 billion by 2009, and then to a whopping $280 billion by 2020.7
If the world dream of the biofuel industrial complex stands, the world can forever count on renewable biotic resources for 20 to 30 percent of global energy supply.8 Other techno-optimists predict that bioenergy could supply up to 50 percent of global energy needs by 2050.9 But this growth requires the continuous conversion of massive amounts of arable land, forests, and wetlands to bioenergy feedstock production as well as the use of vast quantities of freshwater resources to grow presumably unlimited bioenergy crops and industrial trees.
Oblivious to how the laws of evolutionary biology and thermodynamics operate, the global biofuel industrial complex is bullish about the prospects of realizing its global dream by completing the commodification, recommodification, and commercial enclosure of nature by supplying limitless energy, eradicating world hunger, and mitigating climate change. Indeed, in anticipation of greater accumulation, the cross-pollination of investments in the emerging bioenergy sector has become unprecedented, as multifarious capitalist corporations and institutions have begun pouring their overaccumulated capital into the sector. These corporations and institutions range from hedge and pension funds to automobile, petroleum, grain, biotech, and chemical industries. These corporate oligopolies see the socially constructed crisis of global capitalism in energy and food as an opportune moment to make a profit, and they are prepared to demolish all barriers on the way to limitless expansion of accumulation.
The potential depletion of fossil fuel has also brought oligopolies and governments into ever closer union. Global corporations promise that they have unlimited biotechnological capabilities and organizational means to transform all living organisms and plants into infinite sources of food and energy. Governments, for their part, are poised to create the necessary enabling environments for totalizing the commodification or recommodification of the Commons and the extortionate exploitation of labor. Seeing biofuels as a means of overcoming their legitimation deficit in the eyes of citizens, states now pin their future on the corporate promise that the global economy can be run on supposedly low-carbon biofuels decade after decade indefinitely, thereby strengthening the corporate grip on governments, at the expense of nature and society. As global oligopolies take over the driver’s seat in the commercial enclosure of nature, governments would enjoy a free ride in a run on an infinite supply of supposed renewable energy. Even more disconcerting, the socially constructed global energy crisis has brought oil oligopolies, grain corporations, and biotech companies into ever closer union through conglomerate diversification, cross-industry investment, partnerships, mergers and acquisitions, and strategic alliances, so much so that it has become impossible to make functional demarcations among them. In 1999, there were 32,000 mergers and acquisitions worldwide, valued at $3.4 trillion. By then, of the hundred largest economies in the world, fifty-one were corporations while forty-nine were countries.10 The oligopolies in the oil, automobile, grain, and biotech sectors all now view biofuels as the final frontier of capitalist accumulation. As this chapter will show, the corporate transmigration to the biofuels sector is not about climate change mitigation or increasing food production to feed the world, but rather about expanding the scope for capital accumulation while containing the looming crisis inherent in overaccumulation.
FROM BLACK CARBON TO GREEN CARBON
The Hubbert peak, the potential fear of being frozen out of the heavily subsidized biofuel production sector, and the public relations problem facing the black-carbon economy form the backdrop for oil oligopolies to make a partial migration to the nascent biofuel sector. Public display of optimism notwithstanding, oil oligopolies have always been haunted by the specter of the Hubbert peak, and this fear has informed their decisions and moves. Even though the current technology and fracking boom has allowed oil oligopolies to venture into offshore drilling, shale, and tar sands, it is clear that the new discoveries are equally subject to depletion in the long run. In this context, biofuels are a fallback option for oil corporations. To remain relevant players in the global economy, they have to reckon with the need to make a partial migration to the biofuel sector. However, this new vision of a bio-based direction for capitalist accumulation on a global scale is not seen as a substitute for, but rather a complement to, hydrocarbon-driven accumulation. Chevron’s VP, Donald Paul, was frank on this point when he stated that his company did not see biofuels as a replacement for fossil fuels, but rather, as a supplement to it. As he put it, “How big is this going to be? I would have to say you don’t know. When you got a new playing field with different players, the way you find out how big it is, is you get in there and do it. We see it as an augmentation strategy, quite frankly. When you look at the growth in demand in the next 25 years in fuels, to meet some fraction of that growth … you’re going to need to augment what we have.”11 Shell and Exxon have even been more conservative than Chevron over the prospects of biofuels. As Rob Routs, Shell’s director for downstream operations, notes, “We don’t believe the current situation is sustainable, because if agricultural land is being picked up for fuel production, sooner or later there is going to be a clash. And as a fuel company, we don’t want to get involved in that.”12 This attitude has been reflected in Shell’s investment priorities. For example, Shell invested $32 billion in 2008 in fossil fuels, whereas it allocated a mere $1.3 billion in alternative energy sources over a five-year period.13
For managers of Exxon-Mobil, biofuels are “moonshine,” believing that bio-based fuels are far into the future. In their calculation, even if production of biofuels is probable, the amount generated would be too small to displace the hegemony of fossil fuels. Former Exxon-Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson was candid when he told Charlie Rose: “When coal came into the picture, it took 50 or 60 years to displace timber. Then crude oil was found, it took 60, 70 years, and then natural gas. So it takes 100 years or more for some new breakthrough in energy to become the dominant source. Most people have difficulty coming to grips with the sheer enormity of energy consumption. If we look at our energy outlook, things like renewable wind, solar, biofuels, we have those sources over the next 30 years growing 700 to 800 percent. But in the year 2040, they’ll supply just 1 percent.”14 Exxon’s bearish orientation toward biofuels is reflected in its investment priorities. In 2006, the oligopoly allocated a mere $600 million to algae research out of its total $23 billion capital expenditure for that year.
Among oil oligopolies, BP is more aggressive in its approach to alternative energy. In 2006, BP announced an allocation of $8 billion for alternative energy over a ten-year period, with biofuels the primary corporate focus. In 2007, BP led its partners, Associated British Foods and DuPont, in a joint ethanol plant in England to jack up ethanol production from one million liters a year to 420 million liters a year, providing