Photo: doskophoto
Two new studies published in the journal Science conclude that growing and burning biofuels actually increases net greenhouse-gas emissions and exacerbates climate change. The new research questions the assumptions of earlier studies, making sure to incorporate the effects of land-use changes into emissions calculations. When land-use changes are taken into account, turns out that plowing up rainforests and grasslands to make way for biofuel crops tips the balance, making biofuels more problematic than helpful. Biofuels proponents, including the powerful U.S. ethanol lobby, have for years cited figures asserting that biofuels made from crops like corn release about 20 percent fewer emissions overall than gasoline and that fuel from switchgrass emits about 70 percent less. One of the new studies, however, found that due to the impact of plowing up new fields, corn-based ethanol nearly doubles greenhouse-gas emissions compared to gasoline and that fuels made from switchgrass increase emissions by about 50 percent. Not all biofuels were net losers, though. The study authors suggested that producing biofuels from waste products still makes sense.
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Comments View as Flat
GreyFlcn Posted 2:43 am
08 Feb 2008
Nothing is safe from science!
Oh snap.
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BruceMcF Posted 3:54 am
08 Feb 2008
The key assumption is in the ...
This is why subsidies for development of cellulosic feedstocks should be in the form of soil rehabilitation payments, and focused on perennial crops replacing an annual rotation.
Given that we do not have a sustainable agriculture, it is basically automatic that simply converting the output of American agriculture into any biomass energy source will also be unsustainable.
And, further, the tariff on ethanol should be increased in line with increases in ethanol subsidies at the pump ... large, high income countries are not pursuing sustainable renewable power if they are importing it "from elsewhere". A sustainable technological base is one that can be replicated sustainably, and if a technology is to be a candidate for spreading sustainably across the globe, there is no "elsewhere" for imports to come from.
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WWAGD?! Posted 4:05 am
08 Feb 2008
Greens Are Responsible For Warming
So, therefore, all the Gores, Nelson, Bonos, Crowe Mellencamps and Gateses who promoted "biofuel" over the last year are more responsible for CO2 increases than me, driving my 1991 Pontiac Grand Prix on good old fashioned gasoline.
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PeterPage Posted 4:40 am
08 Feb 2008
Biofuels can be sustainable
Buried deep in the story on this in the NY Times is recognition that sugarcane-based ethanol from Brazil is efficiently produced and the EU has imposed sustainability standards. The point is that how we produce biofuels now - which is to say no more sustainably then we do anything else - does not mean we can't. Please, google BioPact to learn the best under-appreciated idea for saving civilization, to produce biofuels sustainably in poor countries and export to rich countries. Check out biochar and pyrolysis to see how biofuel production can become carbon-negative, eventually reducing atmospheric CO2 to something like Gaia has in mind.
We have to stop believing there are no solutions or else the solutions will never be recognized.
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GreyFlcn Posted 5:47 am
08 Feb 2008
SugarCane
Until you begin factoring in the deforrestation-by-proxy caused by sugar cane ethanol.
In addition to famously weak land laws in Brazil.
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christophersj Posted 6:43 am
08 Feb 2008
This study is limited - Gives False Impression
Its a real shame that the New York Times would publish such limited information. Now the public will think all bio-fuels are bad.
Clearly, if the authors of the study claim that sugarcane is not quite so damaging as corn and soy. Then what about switch-grass for ethanol and algae for bio-diesel??? These are MANY MANY times more efficient, less CO2 emitting, and energy-returning than sugarcane.
WTF?
Here National Geographic compares global warming pollution and energy return on different types of bio-fuels. The differences in plants are AMAZING.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/2007-10/biofuels/bi ...
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GreyFlcn Posted 7:04 am
08 Feb 2008
Uhm
The study actually points out, Switchgrass emits 50% more CO2
As for Algae, thats fine. Assuming you're okay with paying $30 a gallon for fuel.
http://greyfalcon.net/algae4
http://greyfalcon.net/algae
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timraphael Posted 8:01 am
08 Feb 2008
Land Use Impacts Analysis Flawed
Why should US-based corn ethanol, other crop-based biofuels, or advanced cellulosic fuels take a carbon hit for international land use changes for food or housing or other non-fuel related production? By that logic:
* Any US farmland not growing food crops is creating a carbon debt by increasing demand for international food production--What are the "secondary land use impacts" of US grass seed farmers? Or tobacco farmers? Or nursery owners? Or cotton, tomatoes grapes and a myriad of other non-food related agricultural acreage in the US?
* Every new subdivision and greenfield commercial, industrial or residential development creates a carbon debt by taking potential food-producing land out of production and shifting that demand to sensitive, international native ecosystems; and
* Any effort in the US to protect ancient forests or native ecosystems creates a carbon debt by increasing demand for international sources of wood products.
Any analysis that shifts away from a life cycle analysis of the carbon potential for a single product or fuel and attempts to distribute carbon potential to "secondary" or "tertiary" impacts will create a dead-end, through-the-looking-glass scenario that is inaccurate and unworkable.
The real implication of accepting "secondary land use impacts" is an on-going dependence on CO2 intensive, polluting, imported fossil fuels. Inclusion of secondary impacts is the wrong approach--each product should stand on its own.
It's Not Acre for Acre - Productivity Gains Means We Get More From Less
The analyses of land use impacts assume that for every acre of land dedicated to renewable energy feedstocks, another acre of land must be put into production elsewhere in the world. This assumption is flawed for several reasons:
* It fails to account for advances in seed and processing technology that are providing greater yields for each acre of feedstock.
o Corn acreage in the US peaked in 1917 with 116 million acres planted, compared to 93 million acres in 2007. During that period yields have increased by more than 1 bushel/acre/year, from 29 bushels/acre to 200 bushels/acre. This year the US will harvest more than 10 billion bushels of corn, and exports are rising, so certainly US corn ethanol production is not causing a need for increased grain production in the world.
* It ignores the value of the feed co-products that are produced at today's biorefineries.
o The food value of corn is not lost in ethanol production--distillers grain is a high protein, high nutrient co-product that is sold back into the food market.
* It inappropriately assigns all of the impact to growth in renewable fuels, ignoring the effects of a growing world economy, increased demand for food, and urban sprawl.
The Environmental Impacts of Fossil Fuels are Increasing
The reports fail to account for the fact that every gallon of biofuel produced today requires less land, requires less water and is less energy intensive than a decade ago, while the opposite is true for oil production. Every new gallon of oil produced is more energy intensive and requires much more water than before.
The "easy" sources of oil have been found and are being depleted. What is left are more remote, costlier and more environmentally damaging nontraditional sources like Canadian tar sands or Rocky Mountain oil shale. By failing to capitalize on the opportunity renewable fuels offer to begin breaking our adherence to the oil standard, the world would be forced to develop these nontraditional sources of oil that carry significant environmental price tags.
Even traditional sources of oil have steep environmental costs that are not accounted for in the land use reports. Where is the accounting for oil drilling in the Amazon? Oil spills in San Francisco Bay? Or asthma deaths from air pollution?
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Tasermons Partner Posted 8:11 am
08 Feb 2008
Algae...
As for Algae, thats fine. Assuming you're okay with paying $30 a gallon for fuel.
I'm sure that cost would go down if production ramped up and new tech was introduced.
In the meantime, high gas prices=increased hybrids, carpools, and mass transit.
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christophersj Posted 8:35 am
08 Feb 2008
Grey Falcon
Grey Falcon, this article above says that one of the two studies mentions this, yet the NYTimes article does not, and even quotes a lead author saying that sugarcane is on the way to being acceptable. I dont have a subscription to Science but I would love to see the proof of this switchgrass claim.
And why did only one of the two studies come to this conclusion?
According to the numbers in National Geographic, which credits DOE, U.S. EPA, and World Watch Institute, switchgrass:
- returns up to 36 times the amount of energy that went into making it
- produces 91% less greenhouse emissions than gasoline PRODUCTION AND USE)
Even if the land use issue was avoided in these numbers, I find it doubtful those figures could be reduced so much as to be 50% more GHG emissions than gasoline. Its just not believable. Can we get some kind of link to the study?Did they count the gasoline and coal that would be DISPLACED by using cellulosic ethanol???? Did they count that we wouldnt be cutting down forest but rather using large areas of harsh prarie in the Dakotas and such? And the lack of need for petro fertlizers with switchgrass?
Are they really being fair? I'd love to know.
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Wolverine Posted 12:14 pm
08 Feb 2008
It Doesn't Matter What The Fuel Is
The BEST emission you can get by burning fuel, regardless of which fuel it is, is carbon dioxide. Everything else is more toxic. That's what the California v. federal government fight re greenhouse gas regulation is about: the only way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles is to increase their fuel efficiency, which the auto makers claim California has no right to regulate.
Enviros should stop wasting time and effort on technological geek stuff. What we need to do is show that we can live happy, healthy AND not harm the rest of the planet by reducing consumption and living more simply. Greatly reducing or eliminating driving is a good place to start.
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frw Posted 4:29 am
09 Feb 2008
to all who are naysaying this article
This is an important reminder that any approach to global warming HAS to be done holistically. How will we feel, if we succeed in lowering fossil fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles and factories, but at the cost of . . .
- accelerated deforestation (esp. of rainforests)
- accelerated extinction rates
- increased nutrient loads in water bodies (from fertilizers used to grow biofuels)
- increased soil erosion
- accelerated loss of coral reefs (due to sedimentation and excessive nitrogen )
- increased spread of toxins: pesticides, heavy metals and acids from batteries, CFL light bulbs etc.
- reduced clean groundwater/surface water supplies (irrigation for biofuels, contamination from toxins, etc.)
Please stop wasting your time nit-picking or poo-pooing this article. The concept is real: Either we incorporate a holistic approach to global warming FROM THE START, or we support just any and all anti-global-warming techniques, and accept that there will be major consequences that follow.Permalink
scotts Posted 10:33 am
09 Feb 2008
Waste Biofuels
Interesting little debate here. I wonder how the equation changes for biofuels made from waste biomaterials like crop residues and garden waste.
There's a good article on this at Matter Network:
http://www.matternetwork.com/2008/2/a-greener-biofuel.cfm ...
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amazingdrx Posted 11:00 am
09 Feb 2008
We call it waste
But that harvested biomass like prairie grass mowed to prevent fire and wood chips from dead wood in fire prone forests,crop waste, manure, and organic waste in garbage like unrecycled paper, is really carbon borrowed from the soil carbon sink. As much of it as possible has to be returned to keep the soil ecosystem acting as a healthy carbon sink.
Turning it into liquid fuel to guzzle in 6% efficient internal combustion vehicles is not going to do that, it puts it all into the atmosphere, where it worsens GHG climate change.
Better to use this waste stream to produce biogas for clean energy in 70% efficient solid oxide fuel cell/turbine distributed power plants. The cellulosic material left over after digestion soaked in organic fertilizer is a great soil builder. And waste water is cleaned and recycled in the process.
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inkabinkaboo182 Posted 2:48 pm
09 Feb 2008
Guess who's in bed with the ethanol giants...
...Barack Obama! Not him! Not really! I thought he was perfect! Oops, looks like he isn't. Looks like he's spent multiple years in the Senate, and accomplished nothing. Unlike Mike Gravel. By the time he had spent 2 years in the Senate, he had ended the draft by filibustering for 5 months, released the Pentagon Papers to help end the Vietnam war, and so so much more.
www.gravel2008.us - visit that website for a real candidate.
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GreyFlcn Posted 5:04 pm
09 Feb 2008
Yes
Ideologues have it easy.
They don't actually need to worry about compromising anything, because they knew they wouldn't get elected in the first place.
The election is merely a soap box.
That said, between our real choices, Obama, Hillary, and McCain support Ethanol production in a huge way.
This may change however as more of these types of reports come out, and pierce into the public consciousness.
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amazingdrx Posted 1:34 am
10 Feb 2008
Hillary skeptical on ethanol
I think you got that wrong, Hillary is skeptical already on ethanol. This new information should have an impact on the wonky Clinton team.
Barack is a strong supporter of Illinois corn ethanol, Illinois clean coal (futuregen), and nuclear power (Exelon is a large contributor and operates leaking plants in Illinois). He ignores wonky details like this in favor of lobbyist opinion.
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Karen Lee Orr Posted 9:22 am
10 Feb 2008
Re: NYT story re sugarcane
Dr. Searchinger ignores many serious issues regarding Brazilian
sugar cane ethanol.
Dr. Searchinger fails to acknowledge or factor in the human energy
put forth by 200,000 sugar cane workers who migrate to the Brazilian
plantations to work and live like slaves. Without their sacrifice and
government subsidies, the ethanol industry would not survive.
I saw first hand how horrid the living and working conditions
were for the sugar cane "slaves" when I worked in migrant
camps in Florida. Most Jamaican migrants were never paid
and after harvest they were put into cargo planes and flown
back to Jamaica to be forgotten. Many migrant cane cutters
died of heat exhaustion and acute pesticide poisoning,
especially children.
Searchinger says governments should quickly turn their
attention to developing biofuels that do not require cropping.
Sugar cane is grownby cropping; it is replanted every 2 years.
Stalks of seed cane are hand-cut with machetes, loaded onto
wagons, transported to the fields and dropped horizontally
into furrows.
Sugar cane requires more energy and labor than most crops.
Cane is an extremely intense feeder of nitrogen fertilizer as
well as, phosphate that comes from high energy, polluting
strip mine operations. Nitrogen prices have doubled in 3 years.
Sugar cane is dependent on massive use of irrigation water,
herbicides and pesticides.
In the US, sugar cane is highly subsidized with price supports
and irrigation subsidies. The US government spends $2 billion
dollars a year to pump water into and out of cane fields in the
Everglades of south Florida.
Sugar cane farming in Florida has depleted 10 feet of topsoil
in 30 years. Very little topsoil is left to grow crops much longer.
Sugar cane farming will also deplete topsoil in Brazil.
Brazilian labor will not sustain brutal conditions for very long.
Just as Europe is boycotting ethanol from prior rainforests,
we should boycott sugar ethanol that comes from Brazil and
the Everglades, the largest subtropical wetland in the world,
an International Biosphere Reserve and a World Heritage Site
The Everglades was designated as a Wetland of International
Importance in 1987 and we support restoration, not further
destruction.
December McSherry
See ~
The Hidden Story of Big Sugar
Other than gold, no single substance has had a bigger hand in shaping the history of the western hemisphere than sugar. These videos explore the dark history and modern power of the world's reigning sugar cartels.
Using dramatic reenactments, they reveal how sugar was at the heart of slavery in the West Indies in the 18th century, and continues to be at the heart of a present-day epidemic: consumers who are slaves to a sugar based diet and car culture.
The Fanjuls, the Fanjul sugarcane operations in Florida and the Dominican Republic, Bill Clinton and Carl Hiaasen are featured ~
http://209.85.207.104/search?q=cache:RQWEm6A6_dsJ:article ...
sites/articles/archive/2007/10/02/the-hidden-story-of-big-sugar.aspx+hidden+
story+of+big+sugar&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE PRICE OF SUGAR narrated by Paul Newman
http://www.thepriceofsugar.com/press.shtml
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Karen Orr
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mountaintown Posted 11:15 pm
10 Feb 2008
Other solutions
How about instead of cutting down the rainforests to go corn, we use more of our farmland to grow the stuff. Don't we have tons of subsidized crops that go unused each year? Come on America it is time to step up to the plate and make some big changes!
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nycowboy Posted 12:10 am
11 Feb 2008
Corn Ethanol
The reality is that even corn-based ethanol is a good thing -- something that the report ignores. Ethanol as an oxygent in fuel, is vastly environmentally superior to MTBE and to a lesser extent other alykalides made from oil.
I'm all for using more corn ethanol and moving our infrastructure to that rather then petrochemicals. The dangers and pollution from distilling corn are far less then that from conventional crudes, particularly now that we are refining dirtier crudes higher in sulfur.
Ethanol distilling produces lots of volatile organic compounds and toxins. But so does crude oil -- oil refineries are still much bigger polluters then ethanol plants.
Climate change is something to be concerned with, but it should not be viewed isolation. There are many pollutants we also should be concerned with besides carbon dioxide, which we all breathe out.
Not to mention, higher land prices, make agriculture more profitable, and competitive against suburban sprawl. This study apparently does not discuss this.
Nor does it discuss the impact of higher corn prices on cattle farmers. The now look more towards management intensive grazing and increasing the percentage of feed rations to more competitive hay bailage rather then corn and silage.
Cows which eat more bailage in their feed ration produce less methane, and their manure is less acidic and drier, which discourages methane. Not to mention it's a lot healthier to both the stock and the people who eating food from the stock or crops manured with it (as there are less pathogens).
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WWAGD?! Posted 2:31 am
11 Feb 2008
Where Are The Celebrities Now???
And?
Where is the list of celebrites who for the past five years have been browbeating us about "using biofuels"?
Haven't they been doing more "damage" than Sen. Inhofe, George Bush, "the oil companies", "the corporations", coal lobbyists, nuclear power spokesmen and the whole coterie of bogey men that populate the nightmares of dreaming Greens?
Why not condemn the biofuel people?
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danielbell Posted 3:19 am
11 Feb 2008
Intellectual Honesty?
I'd like to hear what Vinod Khosla has to say about this study. Given his recent, ardent, support for biofuels.
Carbon's Number
one simple number, the concentration of carbon in the atmosphere, is the sum of all human actions and the signpost of our fate
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Paula Craig Posted 10:45 am
12 Feb 2008
Biofuels can only work with reduced energy use
Sooner or later the U.S. is going to have to make the transition from fossil fuels to biofuels. The fossil fuels are already running out, and shortages will only get worse. Unfortunately, biofuels cannot possibly recreate the present high-energy lifestyle of the U.S. Biofuels certainly can be produced without net carbon emissions, but it's going to take organic farming techniques. It will probably be more like Amish farming than today's farming with its tractors and chemical fertilizers. All that is going to take LOTS of land. There simply isn't enough farmland in the U.S. to produce enough biofuels to maintain a high-energy lifestyle for the present U.S. population. We are going to have to either enormously decrease our per capita energy usage, or decrease the U.S. population by half or more. We can choose to make this choice now, while we still have enough oil and gas to build the infrastructure for a lower-energy lifestyle, and enough time to decrease population by reducing birthrates. If we put off making the transition, it will happen by way of sky-high prices for both energy and food, and may well involve the Grim Reaper helping us to reduce our energy use.
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rbcoleman Posted 3:15 am
13 Feb 2008
Interesting Discussion Here
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/ngreene/biofuels_not_qu ...
I hope this is not bad form. I dont know blog rules very well.
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amazingdrx Posted 3:38 am
13 Feb 2008
Interesting rb
NRDC blogger defending ethanol and trying to wiggle out of the GHG increase death sentence.
It can't be done. A pound of biomass burned as fuel is a pound not recycled to sequester carbon out of the atmosphere. In the soil ecosystem.
Furthermore, new information about nitrous oxide (296 times worse as a GHG than cO2) release from chemical fertilizer application, suggests that all chemical ag is actually even more dangerous to the GHG balance than previously considered.
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Biodiversivist Posted 2:45 pm
13 Feb 2008
This is how we finally came to accept global
warming as a reality. The science just kept rolling in.
But, a lot of people have become emotionally (and some finacially) invested in the concept of biofuels. For years the media was awash with reports of how great it was. And let's face it, we are emotional creatures capable of rational thought, not the other way around.
- We are in the middle of the sixth great extinction event. The destruction of the planet's biodiversity is directly correlated to the destruction of ecosystems, now commonly referred to as carbon sinks.
- The second leading cause of global warming is from the destruction of carbon sinks, with Brazil and Indonesia being the number two and three emitters behind the United States and China.
- All crop-based biofuels being produced today are exacerbating the destruction of those carbon sinks. The concept isn't simplistic. The concept is simple as the following graphic demonstrates:
http://gristmill.grist.org/images/admin/crayon2.JPGTo put the destructive potential of biofuels into perspective, click on biofuel Bob.
There was an earlier article in Science that said the same thing:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/317/5840/902.pdf
You can read it here.
Followed by one in the Journal of Atmospheric chemistry and physics:
http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/8/389/2008/acp-8-389-2008. ...
The two most recent articles in Science can be found below:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/rapidpdf/1151861v1.pdf
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/rapidpdf/1152747v1.pdf
And then there was this study demonstrating that all biofuels being produced in significant quantities are worse overall for the environment than oil:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2976 from oil drum
http://www.theoildrum.com/files/EMPA3.JPG
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Candace Wheeler Posted 10:51 pm
13 Feb 2008
Biofuels
As a GM employee that works on biofuels, this is an issue I strongly care about. That's why we've partnered with governments all over the world to make sure biofuel production is done right. Right now, I don't think it's clear if clearing unmanaged lands will change our carbon benefit.
The big key to remember, I think, is the benefits of using waste materials and residues to create biofuels which eliminates the whole debate on using rainforests. Our partnership with Coskata will produce these benefits because their process uses any carbon-based materials to create ethanol.
These two studies make some good points and yesterday, I drafted a blog on gmnext.com that examines these issues. Hope you can check it out.
Candace Wheeler
GM Technical Fellow, Research & Development
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GreyFlcn Posted 11:42 pm
13 Feb 2008
Well then
"Any carbon based materials", indeed.
http://greyfalcon.net/coskata
Actually the concept of making it so that you can process whole trees into liquid fuels does raise quite a few gigantic red flags for deforestation.
_
But more specifically, saying that "waste" is going to be enough to do the job is a bit of a crass assumption, or rather an irresponsibly broad definition of "waste".
http://greyfalcon.net/biolimits.png
http://greyfalcon.net/perlack
http://greyfalcon.net/peaksoil
Certainly though, Coal is plenty to do the job, but of course that has it's own obvious issues.
http://greyfalcon.net/fossilenergy.png
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