Some very respected researchers today have lobbed a real bombshell into the energy public policy world: they have concluded that ethanol produced both by corn and switchgrass could worsen global warming.
In other words, Congress really blew it last year when it mandated a massive increase in biofuels (an action coated with green language but really an effort by both political parties to cater to farm states). This is also a slap at President Bush's effort to paint himself as something other than an oil man.
The new findings, led by separate teams from Princeton University and the University of Minnesota conclude that the land use-based greenhouse gas emissions would overwhelm possible emission reductions.
In other words, these studies really challenges orthodox thinking and prior assumptions about the impact of biofuels on greenhouse gas production.
These studies are unique in that they take a comprehensive look at the emissions effects of the huge amount of land that is being converted to cropland globally to support biofuels development.
"When you take this into account, most of the biofuel that people are using or planning to use would probably increase greenhouse gasses substantially," said Timothy Searchinger, the lead author of one of the studies and a researcher in environment and economics at Princeton University explained to the International Herald Tribune.
"Previously, there's been an accounting error: land use change has been left out of prior analysis." Searchinger added.
Corn-based meat and ethanol: burning the planet to a crisp
Comments
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GreyFlcn Posted 11:37 am
07 Feb 2008
The Berkeley team warned about the land-use-change bogeyman ("LUC" in shorthand) in a pair of lengthy reports submitted to California authorities last year. But only this month did the team report the startling, if preliminary, numbers. Current wisdom in California says gasoline produces about 92 grams of carbon dioxide for every megajoule of energy produced; ethanol is reckoned to be slightly cleaner at 75.9 grams. But the land-use penalty alone from growing more biofuel crops could add as much as 140 grams/MJ--a "really enormous" number, professors Farrell and O'Hare wrote.
http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2008/01/23/more ...
http://greyfalcon.net/landuse
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Werdna Posted 12:09 pm
07 Feb 2008
But, I thought that one of the benefits of moving to something like switchgrass is that it grows kind of like a weed on ground that is otherwise too rocky, steep or otherwise unsuited for agriculture (or many other plants). In effect, I thought that planting switchgrass in proper areas would not remove carbon from the ground.
(Of course, this is still hypothetical because cellulosic ethanol is not yet viable.)
Andrew Eisenberg
The gateway project is wrong---http://www.livableregion.ca
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GreyFlcn Posted 2:56 pm
07 Feb 2008
And what are the chances that
You can harvest that easily
There is logistics set up in that area to use it
Chances are, if it turns into a cash crop, farmers aren't going to run all the way into the boonies to go plant some.
Especially since the distribution logistics of cellulosic materials is absolutely critical.
http://i-r-squared.blogspot.com/2007/03/logistics-problem ...
http://i-r-squared.blogspot.com/2006/11/cellulosic-ethano ...
_
Additionally, it doesn't make sense that if you are going to switch existing corn ethanol refineries to be cellulosic, that they would be able to take advantage of anything but what is planted locally.
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Biodiversivist Posted 3:27 pm
07 Feb 2008
How could something this obvious have been left out? A beautiful example of the power of group think.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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GreyFlcn Posted 4:31 pm
07 Feb 2008
You're assuming it wasn't left out on purpose.
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amazingdrx Posted 5:06 pm
07 Feb 2008
Thousands of years of stored carbon was trapped in the 20 feet of prairie soil. Now it's in the atmosphere, for the most part.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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314159265 Posted 9:12 pm
07 Feb 2008
My biofuel vision (a not yet really educated guess) is something like that: No artificial fertilizers. 2 crops planted in parallel: A) Some legume (peanut or jatropha) to harvest oil (bio diesel) and for green manuring. B) Some grass to produce wood gas and wood oil in fancy pyrolysis processors (could be good olde wood gas driven automobiles, home heating, chemical industry, ...). The left over charcoal is to be put back into the ground (terra preta).
So, no bio alcoholing, no biogassing, but doing charcoal!
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justlou Posted 9:43 pm
07 Feb 2008
Millions of years to recapture the biodiversity lost in the conversion of natural ecosytems to energy plantations (assuming man is long extinct).
8 months to keep pandering for corn ethanol votes. Priceless.
OK. A confirmation of what several of us have been screaming about. Now, will Congress and Pelosi, or Hillary and Obama get the message? Or are we going to have to keep screaming?
My guess, our leaders will reinforce their fallibilities by proving the old adage -- when you are in a rut, keep digging. I can hear them reflecting the industry line:
Industry groups, like the Renewable Fuels Association, immediately attacked the new studies as "simplistic," failing "to put the issue into context."
"While it is important to analyze the climate change consequences of differing energy strategies, we must all remember where we are today, how world demand for liquid fuels is growing, and what the realistic alternatives are to meet those growing demands," said Bob Dineen, the group's director, in a statement following the Science reports' release.
"Biofuels like ethanol are the only tool readily available that can begin to address the challenges of energy security and environmental protection," he said.
from the NYTimes article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/08/science/earth/08wbiofue ...
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stevenearlsalmony Posted 10:55 pm
07 Feb 2008
Given the relentless plunder and conspicuous over-consumption of Earth's resources we are seeing in our time, choosing not to plunder and fasting might be a bit too much to hope for.
Perhaps 2008 will be the year when human beings agree to do what is humane and necessary to begin voluntarily restraining themselves from literally "eating the family of humanity out of house and home."
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population, established 2001
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/
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amazingdrx Posted 11:22 pm
07 Feb 2008
Get biogas from the biomass, like dead wood that poses a high fire danger in drought stricken areas and prairie grass that would normally burn. Return the cellulose and organic fertlizer left over to the soil.
That reduces fire and increases the efficiency of the biosystem at conversion of sunlight into biomass, allowing land/soil to sequester more carbon out of the atmosphere. And also burn less up into the atmosphere.
I think Hillary already understands the problems with ethanol, she has her eyes open to the plugin hybrid alternative. Barack is too busy attacking Hillary while trying to appear to be the one under attack to pay attention to nuance like this.
The lobbyist party line is to see ethanol from corn as a transition to ethanol from cellulose. i have heard it from my own congressman's staff. We diss corn ethanol, they say, yeah but cellulosic ethanol, there's the good part.
As we see here, corn, sugar cane, or cellulose, burning biomass in gas guzzlers produces twice the GHG of burning oil.
Plugin hybrids charged on renewable energy can reduce liquid fuel use and GHG from vehicles by 90% on average. Meanwhile a Peterbilt hybrid semi is in the works. Power it with recharge strips under highway? Maybe.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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amazingdrx Posted 11:31 pm
07 Feb 2008
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/02/toyota-1x-plug.ht ...
What about this new Toyota hypercar (ultra lightweight, ultra efficient as Amory Lovins has proposed) plugin hybrid? Is Toyota finally getting it? We'll see if it goes into mass production.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Sean Casten Posted 11:40 pm
07 Feb 2008
One can come up with biofuel chains that look really bad on a full fuel chain basis, and one can also come up with biofuel chains that look really good on a full fuel chain basis. And this is true even without getting to cellulosics. Corn is very fertilizer intensive and - since it doesn't come "packaged" with much in the way of non-carbohydrate, it is also very energy intensive to process into ethanol. Sorghum, by contrast is much less fertilizer intensive and contains quite a bit of non-fermentable biomass, such that you could run a sorghum-ethanol plant with no purchased fossil fuel, just burning the extra biomass. (This is essentially the way sugar mills work, burning the bagasse, and the way paper mills work, burning the lignin in the wood chips that isn't separated as fiber).
Bottom line - the analysis may be right for a given set of assumptions, but that doesn't justify a tarring of all biofuels with the same brush.
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amazingdrx Posted 11:52 pm
07 Feb 2008
Nuance won't put that carbon back into the soil, only conservation will. Restore carbon sinks, use renewable electricity for transportation energy.
No matter how hedge funds trade carbon or farm land or biofuel, it won't make that carbon go back into the soil.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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davidconnell Posted 12:31 am
08 Feb 2008
Anyone interested in reading more from on this, should check out this Q&A with Joe Fargione - one of the lead authors of The Nature Conservancy/University of Minnesota study.
(I won't go into the fact that the Mr. O'Donnell failed to cite the the study as coming from The University of Minnesota AND The Nature Conservancy. I'm sure it was an honest mistake) ;-)
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Erik Hoffner Posted 1:20 am
08 Feb 2008
"Processing biomass through a distributed network of fast pyrolyzers may be a sustainable platform for producing energy from biomass.
http://agron.scijournals.org/cgi/content/full/100/1/178
Fast pyrolyzers thermally transform biomass into bio-oil, syngas, and charcoal. The syngas could provide the energy needs of the pyrolyzer. Bio-oil is an energy raw material (~17 MJ kg-1) that can be burned to generate heat or shipped to a refinery for processing into transportation fuels. Charcoal could also be used to generate energy; however, application of the charcoal co-product to soils may be key to sustainability. Application of charcoal to soils is hypothesized to increase bioavailable water, build soil organic matter, enhance nutrient cycling, lower bulk density, act as a liming agent, and reduce leaching of pesticides and nutrients to surface and ground water."
And sequester that carbon in the soil...
Erik
The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more
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GreyFlcn Posted 2:41 am
08 Feb 2008
http://www.grist.org/news/2008/02/08/biofu/index.html
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justlou Posted 3:29 am
08 Feb 2008
The time has come to start designing the tankless infrastructure of the future. We'll drive the earth right over the edge if we try to make flex fuel vehicles the cars of the future. The pressures on remaining natural ecosystems were massive enough even before we added the unnecessary burden of biofuels.
We can say without hesitation that the US energy policy with all its counterproductive features is threatening the future of life on earth.
And we are all part of it.
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socialscientist Posted 3:36 am
08 Feb 2008
http://www.frepubtra.blogspot.com
.
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Asteroid Miner Posted 4:05 am
08 Feb 2008
and other vehicles] in carbon emissions? Gasoline, diesel fuel,
etc. are half hydrogen. For example, octane is C8H18. To figure
out what fraction of the energy is from burning the carbon, you
have to look up the heat of formation of carbon dioxide and the
heat of formation of water. It takes 1 carbon to make one CO2,
but it takes 2 hydrogens to make 1 H2O. You can do the
arithmetic and apportion the energy between the carbon and the
hydrogen. You have to subtract the energy required to break
down the octane into atoms. It is easier to remove the hydrogens
than it is to separate the carbons, so the energy subtracted gets
apportioned too.
Coal is almost pure carbon, except for the URANIUM,
ARSENIC, LEAD, MERCURY, Antimony, Cobalt, Nickel,
Copper, Selenium, Barium, Fluorine, Silver, Beryllium, Iron,
Sulfur, Boron, Titanium, Cadmium, Magnesium, Calcium,
Manganese, Vanadium, Chlorine, Aluminum, Chromium,
Molybdenum and Zinc that are coal's impurities. Even though
transportation uses more energy, coal fired power plants put more
CO2 into the air.
Transportation isn't even the second largest CO2 emitter.
Industrial processes are. The largest CO2 emitter of the industrial
processes is concrete making even though the energy used is less.
The first step in concrete making is heating limestone [calcium
carbonate] to drive off the carbon dioxide to make calcium oxide.
Coal is burned to make the heat, but the limestone is the greater
source of CO2. Other industrial processes include steel making,
metal casting, etc.
The easiest way to make the biggest reduction in CO2 emissions
is to convert all coal fired power plants to nuclear. So get over
your paranoid fears of all things nuclear and get it done.
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Delay And Deny Posted 4:15 am
08 Feb 2008
http://www.coaleducation.org/q&a/what_are_the_chemica ...
Coal is defined as a readily combustible rock containing more than 50% by weight of carbon. Coals other constituents include hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, ash, and sulfur. Some of the undesirable chemical constituents include chorine and sodium.
jabailo.johnmccain.com
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Biodiversivist Posted 2:53 pm
08 Feb 2008
Actually, that is exactly what these studies do. The only biofuels being produced today not tarred by this brush are those made from waste because they are the only ones not displacing carbon sinks. Land use change is the weak link.
This isn't another case of different corn ethanol researchers finding different answers about energy balance simply because they used different assumptions. Researchers have simply ignored land use change until now.
You mentioned in another comment that your company has installed cogeneration in corn ethanol plants in the past few years ("...the company I ran up until last year has done backpressure turbines at ethanol plants to generate power.")
Is it planning to install cogeneration in other corn ethanol refineries? How much money are we talking about here? Is it possible that your support of corn ethanol is more than coincidental, that it may be the result of subconscious rationalization bias? Your arguments in support of corn ethanol certainly are not any better than others I'v seen:
"...been too much pure ethanol bashing on Grist for my taste ...they all get written [studies bashing corn ethanol energy balance] by the same small handful of academics who get podiums much bigger than the scientific consensus warrants ..."
There are reasons there are no biofuel producers on this planet who are going to voluntarily walk away from their investments.
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon him not understanding." --Upton Sinclair
This is going to be a power struggle between moneyed interests on one side and informed environmentalists (now being fully backed by science) on the other, as usual.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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justlou Posted 10:16 pm
08 Feb 2008
But a lot of environmental losses will have taken place by the time version 2.0 is here. And to keep the pipelines filled, version 1.0 will have to stay in place for a very long time as version 2.0 is phased in. So, the planet has to continue taking a big hit of heroin until we can get it on a dose of methadone. We are so fucked!
Industry shills like Bob Dineen state that we have now grown so dependent on ethanol that the global warming costs have to be considered "in context".
I guess we are going to continue to suffer with the "context" our leaders in Washington see vs. the "context" of the biosphere. Will we push ahead to double the output of corn ethanol or will we call for a moratorium on future corn ethanol development?
We need to extend the debate about our addiction to oil to our addiction to all liquid fuels. The answer is not to continue growing the supply but to begin dismantling the infrastructure built on liquid fuels and replacing it with wisely designed systems that largely free us from pumps. nozzles and internal combustion.
Alternative fuels in unsustainable systems only perpetuate and ratchet up the technological dependency on unsustainable systems. Ethanol is a prime example of technocratic muddling -- allowing bad design to dictate our future. In this context, we are not free men.
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LGT Posted 10:24 pm
08 Feb 2008
http://edro.wordpress.com/2008/02/05/drying-aquifers-sink ...
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RDMiller Posted 2:11 am
09 Feb 2008
A few critical facts have been left out from the discussion of this Science study.
Switchgrass and other potential feedstock sources for cellulosic ethanol can be planted without negative impact on abandoned farmland (of which there is something like 200 million acres in the U.S.). The problem discussed in the study comes from converting native grasslands or forests to switchgrass... NOT from planting on land which was previously used as farmland. When people leave out important facts like this, all credibility is lost.
There is no discussion in the report about using wood harvested sustainably from forests as a feedstock for cellulosic ethanol... clearly, because this is not a problem.
These two facts are more than adequate to support a large, successful and sustainable biofuel industry.
On the other hand, I think the issues raised by this study are vitally important and need to be headed. Clearing forests to produce biofuels; converting savannah and native grasslands; even converting abandoned farmland to corn ethanol, are all problematic and should not be utilized.
Let's try to keep the facts straight.
Coskata and other companies are on track to produce cellulosic ethanol at $1.00 per gallon. While questions remain, this could well turn into an important component of the renewable energy mix of the future.
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amazingdrx Posted 2:47 am
09 Feb 2008
Conversion of cropland to monocrop switchgrass, fertlized with fossil derived fertilizer (don't kid yourself that is the real technique that will be used for fuel farming, no matter what assurances you hear now, before the fuel farms get up and running), won't restore the carbon sink activity of the stripped soil.
That land needs to be restored to conservation land as a real carbon sink, as natural prairie grass is. Some of the cellulose could be harvested for energy, but not to guzzle as gas. Around a third of the grass every year could be used to produce biogas and fertilizer/soil amendment. Mowed in such a way to prevent fires.
Similarly, dead wood could be cleaned up to prevent forest fires and chipped up for paper and chip board, the rotted portion fed into biodigestors, making more clean kwh from the biogas, producing organic fertlizer that returns carbon to the soil and builds it back up.
A new Civilian Conservation Corps could get back the logging jobs lost by bottomline corporate forest mismanagement. Respond to climate change drought before it turns into forest firestorm. The valuable byproducts paying the conservation workers.
Should war be the employment of last resort in the USA, as it has become in africa? Or should we go back to FDRs new deal plan? I say we have a new deal. Where conservation projects and wind farm building, instead of dam building, give kids a better option than crusading for oil empire.
Why not make ethanol from the cellulose? Because it doesn't produce fertilizer and recycle waste water into clean water as biodigestion of the waste stream and biomass can.
Instead it uses huge amounts of water and can only replace 15% of oil based gas guzzling. That's all the truly green (only the fraction of biomass that would otherwise burn in fires) cellulose could supply.
Finally the biogas can be used in distributed (waste heat captured for local heating needs) solid oxide fuel cell/turbine power plants. At three times the efficiency of normal centralized power plants.
100 of these distributed systems on farms and at landfills, using the biogas, provide much more secure grid backup than one centralized nuclear or fossil fuel plant.
Why burn up liquid fuel in an internal combustion gas guzzler at 6% effiency? That's the foolish result of making ethanol from the cellulose. Only a fraction of 1% of the energy in the ethanol moves the weight of the driver and passenger.
Try a plugin hybrid hypercar like the one from Toyota charged up on renewable electricity from a smart grid backed up by biogas from that biomass. Much better result.
The new Toyota plugun hybrid hypercar.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2008/2/8/3 ...
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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GreyFlcn Posted 4:03 am
09 Feb 2008
Coskata and other companies are on track to produce cellulosic ethanol at $1.00 per gallon.
Coskata doesn't expect to hit that magical $1.00 price point until 2016.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2008-01-13-gm-ethanol ...
8 years from now.
That doesn't really sound "on track" to me.
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RDMiller Posted 4:17 am
09 Feb 2008
What you posted was your agenda and a lot of unsubstantiated gibberish. If you want to document your statements with independent studies and facts (not links to statements from your colleagues who hold similar views), please do so. Otherwise, know there are few people (who are in positions to effect what actually happens) who take your statements seriously.
I could go through your statements one by one and point to spin, agenda, and twisted logic, but it's simply not worth my time.
My goal here was simply to clarify a few facts regarding the initial post and a few follow ups to that. This done, I'll now move on.
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spaceshaper Posted 4:33 am
09 Feb 2008
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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amazingdrx Posted 4:58 am
09 Feb 2008
Way back when the Minnesota prarie study came out last year (finding 1.8 tons of cO2 per acre per year carbon sink storage), we started pointing out how fuel farming robs the carbon sink soil ecosystem.
Switchgrass crops without negatively effecting the carbon balance? Using that land to produce fuel, instead of returning carbon from the atmosphere to the soil. That produces the negative balance up front. Releasing millenia of stored carbon in a few short years of fuel farming. It destroys an ecosystem with chemical monocrop.
Harvesting a fraction of cellulose from forests and prairie, that would otherwise burn in wild fires, and recycling it with biodigestion, while at the same time storing the same amount of carbon in the natural soil ecosystyem is possible.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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RDMiller Posted 9:53 am
09 Feb 2008
I was VERY SPECIFIC... as was the Science study... in specifying that my point was relative to abandoned cropland only. What you did was to twist that into "prairie lands". There's no question that taking native prairie lands and converting those to any biofuel is not sustainable... at least with the current systems being discussed. But I was VERY SPECIFIC in NOT talking about that. Yet you twisted it around to say something different, because you have an agenda. This is how agenda's work. They twist what someone else is saying so that the speaker can feel "right".
If, in fact, you are stating that taking abandoned farmland and planting switchgrass must, by its nature, be a problem, then you are directly contradicting the results of the Science study. I am quite sure you have no evidence to support that conclusion.
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amazingdrx Posted 11:46 am
09 Feb 2008
It's best use to fight climate change is as a carbon sink, not a fuel farm. Cellulosic ethanol or what have you, it all gets burned in very inefficient gas guzzlers.
Switchgrass for ethanol is not a crop that rehabilitates overused land. Does it store more carbon than dust bowl chemical ag desert? Well sure it does. That doesn't make it better than restoring it to a natural state.
CCC work ought to commence to turn devestated chemical ag land into natural conservation land. That's a very good 'new deal" type project. make it so president Hillary, in memorial to FDR.
And make a thousand square miles or so into a new national park to honor Teddy Roosevelt, store carbon, host bison and other wildlife, and serve as a huge national wind farm site. A Prairie National Park.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2006/2/9/1 ...
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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GreyFlcn Posted 6:52 pm
09 Feb 2008
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/02/ ...
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RDMiller Posted 8:18 pm
09 Feb 2008
I could see why you like that particular article, as it uses the same deceitful tactics as you and your friends use. Namely, it incorrectly uses the phrase "croplands AND OTHER CARBON-ABSORBING LANDS". The latter could, of course, be anything, from prairie lands to intact forests. This is NOT what the Science study speaks to. It is specific in stating that there is not a problem using switchgrass on abandoned farmland. How could there be. Those lands have already largely lost their carbon sinking ability.
Again, when you are your friends twist words, it indicates you have an agenda that requires you to displace facts and replace them with personal gibberish to force your point.
Let's stick to facts.
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spaceshaper Posted 9:19 pm
09 Feb 2008
Genuine question: why would abandoned farmland lose its carbon-sinking ability? There's plenty of it around my way (the N. Carolina Piedmont), old cotton and tobacco fields mostly that generally have covered themselves in fast-growing pine and sweetgum within twenty years, getting ready if left to themselves to succession into mixed deciduous climax forest in fifty or so. There's no albedo effect to speak of - we get a a few days of snow cover every few years. There are vast amounts of self-supporting second-growth forest like this throughout the southeast. Isn't this a major chunk of the abandoned farmland we are talking of, and isn't it sinking carbon as we speak?
I don't pretend to be an expert in the bioprocesses involved, but here's my concern: seen as resources of low-value cellulosic fiber these huge acreages of abandoned land are clearly prime candidates for feedstock supply for a cellulosic ethanol boom (assuming the technology becomes actually viable). Quite apart from the habitat destruction and visual devastation that would come from the wholesale removal of this material for biofuel, and the loss of soil stabilization and regeneration from the natural forest cycle, wouldn't it also result in a major spike in carbon release that would take decades for the regenerating forest to reabsorb?
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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Erik Hoffner Posted 11:14 pm
09 Feb 2008
A recent issue of Nat Geographic showed what large swaths of North Dakota look like these days. Ghostly, largely abandoned farming towns, growing grasses, not trees. I think these are the sorts of places that an interim step of making liquid fuel from switchgrass could make sense.
Erik
The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more
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RDMiller Posted 12:30 am
10 Feb 2008
I don't know the actual breakdown in terms of the current state of abandoned farmland in this country, but I'm sure a meaningful percentage of it is already reverting to forest and other original habitats. On these lands, it seems to me, we'd need to be quite careful in how they are approached as potential feedstock sources. However, this certainly does not mean they can't be used to support the biofuel sector... it simply means (at least for forests) that they need to be managed sustainably.
I was recently invited to view a research forest plot in Vermont that was being sustainably harvested (by the University of Vermont) to measure impacts and yields. This forest was probably 30 years old. It had 65 tons of forested biomass per acre. They were removing 20 tons (mostly to alleviate over-crowding) specifically to be used as feedstock for energy. This is what a sustainable harvest looks like.
If you ever get a chance to visit the Menominee tribal forests in Wisconsin, you can see the effects of 150 years of sustainable forestry on 220,000 acres. I can only say that this forest is incredible in terms of health and productivity. Managing U.S. forests like this to produce forest products and energy would be a blessing (with, of course, leaving aside a significant percentage of our forests in a completely untouched state).
In terms of abandoned farmlands reverting back to native grasses and other non-forest habitat, the call to use those lands to grow switchgrass or other energy crops would need to be made on a case by case basis.... and always designed to minimize carbon storage losses. But I'd agree with you that in some cases, they would be better left in the state they are currently in.
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Ron Steenblik Posted 12:52 am
10 Feb 2008
Switchgrass and other potential feedstock sources for cellulosic ethanol can be planted without negative impact on abandoned farmland (of which there is something like 200 million acres in the U.S.)
I presume that this number comes from comparing current cropland with the total area of land that has ever been farmed, or the maximum amount ever farmed in a given year (a smaller number) -- either number I suspect includes a significant amount of land that was tilled to the dust bowl years, and never should have been. I presume also it includes highly erodible land on steep hillsides in Appalachia, which thankfully also is no longer being tilled on a large scale.
According to the NRCS's latest inventory of land use (outside of federally owned land), in 2003 the USA had 368 million acres classified as cropland. An additional 117 million acres was in pasture, and 405 million acres was considered rangeland. The rest was:
forested land: 406 million acres
developed land (i.e., large urban and built-up areas, small built-up areas, and land used for rural transportation): 108 million acres;
covered with water: 50 million acres;
covered with farmsteads and other farm structures, field windbreaks, barren land, or marshland: 50 million acres;
enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP): 31.5 million acres.
Some 402 million acres was federal land, some of which is rented out as rangeland.
It is worth noting that between 1982 and 2003 there were significant changes in land use in only in a few categories. Basically, cropland area shrunk by 52 million acres, and the area of pastureland declined by 14 million acres. Over the same period, developed land increased by 35 million acres, and 32 million acres was enrolled in the CRP. The decline in cropland and pastureland (66 million acres) almost matches the increase in developed land (67 million acres). The other land uses have remained relatively stable.
The question that needs to be asked is: where would those 200 million acres come from, and what ecological services would the nation be giving up to use them?
Ah, but within the 368 million acres of cropland, 58 million acres are classified as "non-cultivated". But that is not, for the most part, land just waiting to be farmed. According to the NRCS's glossary, this land "includes permanent hay land and horticultural cropland." Hmm, not much land to be diverted to growing biofuels there -- unless the idea is to reduce the hay fed to farm animals, and the fruits and vegetables fed to people.
How about the 31.5 million acres enrolled in the CRP? That's cropland! For the sake of argument, let's ignore some of the environmental consequences of ending the CRP and count that.
That still leaves around 170 million acres to come from somewhere. One hundred and seventy million acres is a lot of land. It is 45% more than the total amount of pastureland available, and equivalent to more than 40% of the total amount of land currently under forest cover.
It is also 40% of the land considered rangeland. Some rangeland is, indeed, suitable for growing native grasses (and may have been once farmed -- before the dust bowl forced people off of it), but the category also includes "many wetlands, some deserts, and tundra". Moreover, "[c]ertain communities of low forbs and shrubs, such as mesquite, chaparral, mountain shrub, and pinyon-juniper, are also included as rangeland." That does not sound like "abandoned farmland".
So, please provide us with more details, RD Miller. What land do you have in mind converting to growing biofuels? Is that land currently sequestering carbon? What is its value to wildlife (not to mention scenic beauty)? If some of it is now used for forestry, how much of those forest products are already being counted on to fuel a new generation of biomass-fired power plants?
These are only my personal opinions.
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RDMiller Posted 1:22 am
10 Feb 2008
Let me be clear... my personal interests lie with forests. I'm not promoting switchgrass or any similar energy crop. I've simply been responding to incorrect statements here and trying to explain what I have come to understand as the arguments by those in the biofuels sector.
I have read the 200 million acre figure in several places, but I don't know the details of it. It may be high... it may be low. But you can be sure folks in the biofuel area are focused on using some of it. They may use it responsibly... they may not. Time will tell.
My interests lie in the 400 million forested acres you stated and the "conversion" of former forested land back to forests.
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amazingdrx Posted 1:26 am
10 Feb 2008
Fell for it again? Hard to believe.
This shows how difficult explaining these issues can be. Imagine explaining it to Barack supporters, or Barack himself? They aren't interested.
And he's winning! Caucuses yet to go and his team packs the caucuses with youngsters. It's looking like more fuel farming, nuclear plants, and clean coal.
No, North Dakota drought and chemical ag stricken farm lands need to be restored to prairie. No "interim" gas guzzling is going to be helpfull.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Ron Steenblik Posted 1:48 am
10 Feb 2008
I repeat: you wrote
Switchgrass and other potential feedstock sources for cellulosic ethanol can be planted without negative impact on abandoned farmland (of which there is something like 200 million acres in the U.S.) [my emphasis]
The last time I looked, switchgrass is not a tree. But maybe what you really meant to say was:
Trees for cellulosic ethanol can be grown without negative impact on abandoned farmland (of which there is something like 200 million acres in the U.S.), much of which has since reverted back to forest.
Perhaps. But the trees growing in most of the nation's private forest land already have economic value. If they may some day have greater economic value as a feedstock for liquid fuels, and less is available for pulp, timber and fuel for power plants, so be it.
But the market has NOT been left to itself: Congress has passed legislation mandating minimum levels of biofuels, mainly ethanol, including specific minimum volumes for cellulosic ethanol. That skews the allocation of resources to that use. Moreover, both the federal government and many state governments subsidize the construction of cellulosic ethanol plants and the production of fuel -- at a combined rate of over $1.00 per gallon (over $1.40 per gallon of gasoline equivalent).
Given that is the case, any raitionale for both mandating cellulosic ethanol use and subsidizing it has to stand up to scrutiny.
Scrutiny is, I thought, what Gristmill was about.
These are only my personal opinions.
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spaceshaper Posted 1:56 am
10 Feb 2008
Three questions remain though: the first is whether energy feedstock is the most appropriate and climate-neutral use of that biomass to meet human need; the second is whether the production of liquid fuels is the most efficient energy use of that biomass, and third is can our voracious appetite for liquid fuels, which borders on the limitless excesses we attach to heroin abuse, be trusted to extract forest biomass in the selective and expensive manner associated with these limited scale projects.
From my current understanding of the situation I would answer: maybe, no, and no.
Forest thinnings also have numerous other uses some of which, such as construction booard materials, include long-term climate-positive carbon sequestration, while energy feedstock use can only offer carbon neutrality at best.
Forest thinnings which are not appropriate for climate-positive use may indeed be well utilized in energy production but even the most optimistic projections for cellulosic ethanol would seem to show far less efficiency than, for example, electrical co-gen.
We seem to have gotten ourselves into a very dangerous situation where we will do anything for a fix of gasohol. Look at our record and tell me how you think we'll manage to stay away from the forestry equivalent of MTR coal extraction.
The moment of truth will come when we finally realize that we can kick that nasty habit. We can have a prosperous and sustainable future which does not depend on the consumption of vast quantities of liquid fuels, fossil or otherwise. It will look different than what currently passes for prosperity, but it will be as good, or more likely better, and it will be long-term sustainable, and we can achieve it. Yes we can. Yes we can.
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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LegumeSam Posted 2:00 am
10 Feb 2008
Not unless the economic structure is radically changed. We are still at the stage of pretending that "alternative fuel" will somehow relieve us of moral duty, when "alternative fuel" will, in itself, do nothing to stop the world of global capitalism from consuming 85 million barrels of oil every day, but will merely supplement the oil-consumption habit.
http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus
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Erik Hoffner Posted 2:14 am
10 Feb 2008
Erik
The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more
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Ron Steenblik Posted 2:18 am
10 Feb 2008
If that were not the case, there would not be a big industry selling fertilizer to people who do not mulch or composte their lawn clippings.
These are only my personal opinions.
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Ron Steenblik Posted 2:19 am
10 Feb 2008
These are only my personal opinions.
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RDMiller Posted 2:33 am
10 Feb 2008
Here's what I know from some 25 years working on sustainable forestry issues.
A very large portion of our forests are in poor health due to poor harvesting practices over the past 100 years (primarily, high-grading and conversion of natural forests to monocultures). This doesn't mean there isn't a great deal of biomass there... it just means these forests are not nearly as healthy as they could be. We need markets for low-grade trees in order to reverse the cycle of "removing the best and leaving the rest." Whether that market is for cellulosic ethanol, direct combustion to produce electricity, paper, building products, firewood, pellets... those answer are not clear. Many factors will determine this outcome. In the end, some bad choices will be made, as well as many good ones. But if cellulosic ethanol technology can produce inexpensive, renewable liquid fuel, and should there be a good reason to use this product over others, it'll come about. I don't know the answer to this yet, and I doubt anyone else does for certain as of yet.
A lot of abandoned farmland could be turned back into productive forests which could be managed sustainably to produce a wide range of products, as well as rich biodiversity and other non-economic values.
If the extraction of woody biomass from intact forests is left to the conventional forest products industry, without adequate market controls, we could be facing a disaster. I am very concerned about this. But it doesn't have to go this way. I know there are quite a few groups working to make sure this doesn't happen. I'm involved in that effort as well. Let's hope and work toward success... and stay vigilant for anything else.
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Erik Hoffner Posted 2:50 am
10 Feb 2008
This argues for smaller operations, regional scale projects for making liquid fuel, if one were to go that route. It's too much to assume that an activity like making liquid fuels will always be an idustrial scale proposition, just because it's currently such.
Erik
The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more
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amazingdrx Posted 2:53 am
10 Feb 2008
If we want biomass to convert to energy, why not just mow a portion of the natural grases. No fertilizer or irrigation needed.
please don't guzzle it as gas at 6% though. Biodigest it, harvest the renewable, easily storable biogas for renewable grid backup (at 70%+ efficiency). Return the fertilizer and soil ammendment left in the biodigestor back into the soil ecosystem. Forget ethanol.
And use plugin hybrids instead of gas guzzlers.
And by all means add in a lot of cellulose from dead wood putting forests at risk of GHG related firestorms. But put the fertilizer back into the forest soil, along with replanting naturally drought resistant plants.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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justlou Posted 3:05 am
10 Feb 2008
Plus, the biofuel route takes us further down the road of managing the face of the earth with more applied resources and energy vs. learning to live in balance with relatively self sustaining natural ecosystems that do not rely on the inputs of man's constant tinkering and the application of fossil fuel energy to sustain them yet benefit man with priceless ecological services.
The ecological and environmental impacts of stripping forest lands of their "waste" undergrowth would certainly need to be extensively researched before blundering into these "underutilized" systems. What is "waste" almost certainly adds biodiversity to many forests.
The time to really consider biofuels as a potential alternative is when we have designed, engineered and developed systems that have already reduced their oil consumption by something approaching 80% compared with our current standard. The biggest threat from biofuel proponents derives from the false promise that we can continue to maintain and grow an extremely wasteful system with what? More waste?
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justlou Posted 3:25 am
10 Feb 2008
Land: Again, the promise of vast acreages of "marginal" lands are proposed for switchgrass production. But guess what? These marginal lands are not going to produce the magical numbers of tons of biomass per acre that proponents often cite. Much of this land is arid or semi arid. Much is of inherently low productivity. And very importantly, much of it is far removed and scattered from potential ethanol production plant sites which meet the production requirements (rail transport, water supply, energy supply, etc.).
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GreyFlcn Posted 3:36 am
10 Feb 2008
Perhaps he's confusing acres for dry tons.
http://bioweb.sungrant.org/Technical/Biomass+Resources/Fo ...
Perlack 2005 for instance pegs it at 220 million dry tons.
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2005/05/the_billionton_.h ...
Then again, there are quite a few assumptions that go into that report that are a bit loopy.
http://greyfalcon.net/perlack
Also one then also has to consider distribution logistics at play.
http://i-r-squared.blogspot.com/2007/03/logistics-problem ...
http://i-r-squared.blogspot.com/2006/11/cellulosic-ethano ...
One also has to consider if even the current practice is sustainable.
http://greyfalcon.net/notwaste
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amazingdrx Posted 3:51 am
10 Feb 2008
"Vogel's results will not please ecologists who want to restore prairie ecosystems by growing mixtures of grasses without fertilisers, and use the cellulose they produce to make ethanol. "It just takes too much land," argues Vogel, who calculated that fertilised switchgrass monocultures will give higher yields per hectare."
So they claim it is necessary to use chemical ag monoculture, meaning herbicide and GMO 'cide resistant switch grass?
Furthermore this hints, since natural prairie is to a large extent natural switchgrass,that it is a suitable alternative. Maybe with far less tractor fuel and oil based chemicals used a better fuel ratio. A very much better end energy ratio if used for biogas and organic fertilizer production.
The ethanol GHG increase is prohibitive anyway.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Erik Hoffner Posted 7:51 am
10 Feb 2008
...big swaths of prairie grass would also be a nice thing for prairie chickens to hide in and for pronghorn and bison to munch on.
The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,100+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more
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JMG Posted 9:52 am
10 Feb 2008
Save the world: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions 5% annually.
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usandthem Posted 12:30 pm
10 Feb 2008
You do realize that plug-ins use electricity that is mostly derived from coal! Nuclear power is filthy,dangerous,and a magnet for terrorist.Plus when water levels drop in draught areas nuclear power plants have to shut down,as in Alabama this past summer.
There is no free lunch.Every energy source has some fault,even wind power and bird migrations.Although wind power is the most benign.It still takes raw materials to build them.
Why not ask why!?
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LegumeSam Posted 12:42 pm
10 Feb 2008
Jim Kunstler, speaking at the Oct. 2007 Assn. for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO) conference in Houston noted an odd transformation --- noting that somehow, the main job of environmentalists has become figuring out how to keep everybody's car going. Threads like this one just make Kunstler's point.
And if you point out that none of their "alternative energies" will stop the burning of even ONE barrel of oil, they just ignore you. Enjoy the hot weather, fools!
http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus
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amazingdrx Posted 1:05 pm
10 Feb 2008
Erik I think we really do need a Prairie National Park. And a whole lot of prairie land restored as carbon sink and biomass resource. If only the amount that normally burns is harvested in such a way as to prevent fires.
Amory lovins showed off his home on "Six Degrees" tonight on the National Geographic channel. It uses 120 watts, one tenth the normal home power use. Including heating/cooling. Solar panels on the roof supply more than that power use, supplying a surplus to the grid.
With this kind of design and retrofit of buildings, hypercar plugin hybrids like the new Toyota, and the rest of the renewable energy sources, why even wonder about nuclear power or coal or fuel farming. Just forget it.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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amazingdrx Posted 1:13 pm
10 Feb 2008
Like smart grid technology for instance. Too bad, but I think any positive news on the green front tends to annoy him. Perpetual self-admitted curmudgeon that he is.
Beware oil industry analysts and consultants. Self deception is necessary to cash their checks.
I do enjoy his blog though. Someone tell him the amish are using solar panels, please? Hehey. That will further depress him.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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GreyFlcn Posted 1:41 pm
10 Feb 2008
Yeah. Guess it's a good thing that even if you use the dirtiest coal available, it's STILL greener than driving a normal car.
http://greyfalcon.net/plugins7
Every energy source has some fault,even wind power and bird migrations.
Not really, if you use any sort of objective scientific perspective.
http://greyfalcon.net/windstudy
http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story?id=48 ...
Noted, there are 3 facilities in California which use ancient windmill tech,
http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11935&pag ...
http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11935&pag ...
and those account for nearly all the windmill bird deaths in the US.
http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11935&pag ...
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caniscandida Posted 3:21 pm
10 Feb 2008
http://www.currykerlinger.com/windpower.htm
They were referred to some time ago in Gristmill, on the subject of bird mortality as a consequence of wind turbines.
I had the pleasure to meet Paul Kerlinger once: truly a dedicated naturalist and ornithologist. He knows and loves his birds, all of them, by no means only raptors, who oddly are the only birds considered in the study to which you link us. He certainly does not like the idea of bird deaths resulting from human technology. And yet, on balance, he and his colleague do not consider wind turbines to be a big problem, if they are sited with care.
The decision to build wind turbines, knowing that some birds and bats will be killed as a result, is perhaps comparable to Dick Cheney's project to have all US citizens inoculated for small pox in late 2001, knowing that statistics guaranteed there would be a considerable number of deaths. But then again, pretty much all tall buildings with glass windows kill birds. So, where do we begin?
At least it is good when we pay attention to what we are doing, and to what what we are doing will mean.
Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.
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Biodiversivist Posted 3:27 pm
10 Feb 2008
I don't post here often because I find there's an underlying agenda from folks like amazingdrx, justlou, diodiversivist and others that undercuts the credibility of much of what they write. ...Keep on fooling yourself ...What you posted was your agenda and a lot of unsubstantiated gibberish ...know there are few people (who are in positions to effect what actually happens) who take your statements seriously ...Your agenda blinds you ...because you have an agenda. This is how agenda's work ...I could see why you like that particular article, as it uses the same deceitful tactics as you and your friends use ...Again, when you are your friends twist words, it indicates you have an agenda that requires you to displace facts and replace them with personal gibberish to force your point.
And from another thread (where your penchant for strawmen was exposed):
At some point, you'll begin to realize that posts like yours are actually the worst kind of "pollution" on this planet. You have personal work to do. You do not serve the Earth through vicious attacks like your post against Mr. Khosla ...Pay Attention, Please ...It's difficult to engage in meaningful conversation here if those who post in response to others simply insert their own agendas and pay no attention to what has been written ...Do you not understand the definition of sustainable forestry as defined by the FSC (Forest Stewardship Council)? If not... as is obviously the case...please educate yourself before responding ...Once again, another person responding with their own agenda...one which pays little attention to what others have written. It's really impossible to have effective dialogue like this ..It's that agenda again ...It's too bad some sort of personal agenda makes it difficult for you to fairly consider new and different viewpoints ...You might want to consider cutting out the coffee breaks ...There are so many problems with this post that it's hard to know where to start
I've never seen so many insults strung together in just two threads. I think you may hold the Gristmill record.
The last time I saw a guy this obnoxious was when I first started criticizing biodiesel. Cellulosic is different in that it does not yet exist, so arguing about its pros and cons isn't very productive. I would suggest that government should generously fund research but should not distort markets with mandates and subsidies.
You have used the word "agenda" about 20 times in just two topics. Why don't you enlighten us as to what our hidden agendas are?
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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RDMiller Posted 9:04 pm
10 Feb 2008
Having been deeply involved in the environmental movement for 30 years, I've seen this agenda many times before. It makes it difficult, if not impossible, to discuss issues on merit and fact.
Think President Bush. Why do you think he does what he does in the face of so many facts to the contrary? It's called a personal agenda.
If you could see beyond your agenda, you would see that your words against folks like me are degrading and dismissive.
It's not my nature to be offensive. But I will defend myself when the need arises.
Tone down your responses, listen to what others are saying (not agree... just really listen), and leave open the space to be wrong.
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amazingdrx Posted 7:46 am
11 Feb 2008
If you mean we won't compromise, that is not true. We are willing to have reseach continue on ethanol and nuclear power and even clean coal.
But we are arguing that these technologies do not deserve to be subsidized or built out on a wide scale unless they can be proven safe, economically competitive (with renewables), non-contaminating, and GHG free.
We are claiming that better devices like plugin hybrid vehicles (bikes too), electric commuter trains and buses, geo heat exchange heating/cooling systems, solar panels, wind machines, wave machines, hydro power energy storage, biogas digestors all working through a smart grid can do the job right now. While actually lowering gasoline and energy related costs and stabilizing energy cost related inflationary pressures that are wrecking the economy.
We are also contending that the green jobs created in the process will restore the US manufactuing and tax base. Pulling us out of oil war caused recession.
This will also make the US independent of the oil that these oil wars are being fought over.
I think we want to get this right. What is wrong about that?
Replace the mess we have now with this new energy paradigm over the next 20 years, half in 10 years. That will reverse the worst effects of GHG climate disaster.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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rbcoleman Posted 10:33 am
11 Feb 2008
I have two questions for those of you (including O'Donnell) that have bronzed this analysis:
How can you be so supportive of a study that is so blatantly not an apples to apples comparison? Searchinger et el add indirect/upstream impacts to biofuels, then compare that analysis to a petroleum baseline for which they do NOT add indirect impacts. It's a total mechanical breakdown.
How can you say this is a biofuels "bombshell" when the primary assumption right out of the gate is 30 bgy of corn ethanol. We produce 8 bgy now. the federal energy bill stops at 15 bgy through 2022!!!!!
This analysis is clearly a "worst case scenario" analysis that the authors have allowed the press and the unsuspecting public to interpret as a reflection of today's biofuels or today's policies.
For the record, it is CLEARLY useful to "get it right" with regard to a carbon footprint for biofuels. But if we're going to go indirect on biofuels, let's go indirect on the other alternatives too dont you think? Especially if we are going to compare them.
You would think this community would have caught such a basic mechanical problem by this point in the thread.
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amazingdrx Posted 12:20 pm
11 Feb 2008
How do you get around the fact that converting the biomass to a fuel that is burned robs the soil of carbon? Actually preventing it from acting as a natural carbon sink and releasing all the carbon stored over millenia of soil build up.
Just address this fact please. Without vague ill-defined theory laden terminology like "upstream impacts".
The cherished view of ethanol from biomass as a closed loop that doesn't add to CO2 in the atmosphere is fallacious. Every acre that is used to grow fuel crop is an acre that doesn't remove CO2 from the atmosphere and store it in the soil.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Biodiversivist Posted 3:29 pm
11 Feb 2008
Cellulosic does not yet exist. Debate its ramifications as they become known, should it ever reach commercial viability. The debate today is about fuels being produced today. Swarming has nothing to do with it. The quality of your arguments is all that counts.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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RDMiller Posted 9:27 pm
11 Feb 2008
First, to RBColeman... thanks for your words. As near as I can tell, these are a bunch of kids whose hearts are well meaning and have a fire burning within. I understand that and actually appreciate it. In time, they'll learn how to debate respectfully, and in particular, really listen openly to others and consider budging from their stated positions when the facts so dictate. But you're right.. it is probably a waste of my time to hope this might occur now.
Let's make clear a few issues about my stated position. Don't mix my positions with others. LISTEN to what I say and then respond ONLY to what I say.
I do NOT support land use change, unless that change applies to abandoned farm land, involves planting that does not require excessive fertilizer (preferably none or only organic fertilizer) and water inputs, and grows something that is highly sustainable. The determination of whether this process is sustainable or not MUST be done by a group which has widespread support from major environmental groups (NRDC, Sierra Club, NWF, Greenpeace, etc.)
Sustainable forestry (at least as it is defined by the FSC) IS endorsed by every one of those above groups. Why? Because we know it is sustainable... meaning, the forest continues to grow as well OR BETTER after the harvesting takes place. We know this from studying forests that have been managed this way over the past 100-200 years. Carbon in the ground increases... biodiversity increases... people have jobs they love... rural communities benefit.
Cellulosic ethanol is coming. There are at least 100 companies working intensely on the subject, with billions of dollars invested. The science has been reviewed by established, reputable firms and they tell us it will work. Some very smart people are investing a lot of money into this, and their record of investing is very good. BUT, they need to do it right, and many people (like myself) will be watching carefully to see that they do. If they start to depend on poorly-chosen feedstocks or use production processes that are questionable, their investments will be at risk and many will speak out.
It is a fact that it is POSSIBLE to harvest biomass sustainably and turn it into energy. This could be done well and contribute in a large and positive manner to the energy issue, or it can be done poorly. We need to steer it in a positive direction. But arguing that it is inherently a bad idea is silly. If you continue to do this, it indicates you have an agenda... meaning, you're not willing to discuss facts; you're not willing to change your position; and you don't know how to find acceptable compromise with other human beings in a world that demands this.
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spaceshaper Posted 11:15 pm
11 Feb 2008
The phrase "abandoned farmland" does not have the sex-appeal of "wilderness area" but nature does not differentiate between them in the way that bio-fuels enthusiasts do. We have yet to see evidence that fuel farming will not inevitably diminish the carbon sequestration currently supplied by this "waste" land. If you wish to successfully defend cellulosic ethanol in this forum, you will need to supply that evidence.
The concept of sustainable forestry has not been challenged here, at least not by me. What is in question is whether forest management in the service of large-scale cellulosic ethanol production is compatible with any level of sustainable land use.
That there is extensive commercial interest in cellulosic research is as much because there is a heavy scent of subsidy in the air as anything else, and it is naive to see this as a realistic measure of anticipated self-sustaining commercial viability under the proper degree of environmental oversight. And a propos of the probability of that oversight being properly conducted, we have only to look at the palm-oil-for-biodiesel disaster.
Of course it is possible to harvest biomass for energy, and to do so sustainably - humans have been doing so for millennia. Humans have also managed to screw up their biomass use pretty badly from time to time, as in the devastation of the ancient English hardwood forests for iron-smelting. And when looked at dispassionately, preliminary research seems to show fairly conclusively that biomass-for-cellulosic-ethanol is really unlikely to be able to be done well or sustainably, and that we should look elsewhere for the best energy deployment of any particular biomass resource. There are plenty of other options that are way more promising.
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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Backcut Posted 11:32 pm
11 Feb 2008
Herseth Sandlin - Walden Bill Would Promote Development and Use of Cellulosic Ethanol Derived from Wood Waste on Federal Lands
February 7, 2008 - WASHINGTON, D.C.
Last night, Rep. Herseth Sandlin (D-SD) and Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR) introduced the Renewable Biofuels Facilitation Act (H.R. 5236), legislation that would promote the development and use of cellulosic ethanol derived from woody biomass on federal lands. The bill would significantly broaden the definition of cellulosic ethanol within the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) to include more biomass gathered from federal lands.
The Herseth Sandlin - Walden bill addresses a flaw included in The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, which included an historic 36 billion gallon renewable fuels standard (RFS). Unfortunately, the legislation's definition of renewable biomass prevents almost all federal land biomass, such as trees, wood, brush, thinnings, chips, and slash, from counting toward the mandate if it is used to manufacture biofuels. This provision not only discourages the use of such biomass, but in doing so could result in a decrease in responsible forest management by denying land managers an important outlet for the excessive biomass loads that often accumulate on public lands. The Herseth Sandlin - Walden bill would promote the use of energy from waste products gathered on federal lands, including those that are byproducts of preventive treatments and are removed to reduce hazardous fuels, to reduce or contain disease or insect infestation, or to restore ecosystem health.
The Renewable Biofuels Facilitation Act was co-sponsored by a geographically diverse and bipartisan group including Representatives Peter DeFazio (D-OR), Bart Stupak (D-MI), Mike Ross (D-AR), Chip Pickering (R-MS), Emerson (R-VA), Emerson (R-MO), Goodlatte (R-VA), Bonner (R-AL), J. Peterson (R-PA).
Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.):
"The energy bill recently signed into law does a great deal to advance America toward a smarter energy future," Walden said. "Unfortunately, it woefully underappreciated the role biomass must play in our energy portfolio by excluding biomass produced in federal forest health projects from the country's new 36 billion gallon renewable fuels standard. Additionally, the energy bill placed onerous restrictions on the use of biomass from private lands."
Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-SD):
"Currently, the energy bill provides great incentives for innovative entrepreneurs, often working in conjunction with government and academia, to create new ways to make clean, homegrown renewable biofuels in this country," Herseth Sandlin said. "Unfortunately, current law prevents biofuels made from biomass that originates on public lands or any biomass from private land that is not `planted' and `actively managed' from being counted toward the RFS. This is unfortunate, unnecessary, and unjustified."
The Renewable Biomass Facilitation Act would change the definition to clarify that federally sourced biomass is eligible for consideration under the renewable fuels standard and is identical to the language included in the Senate's version of the Farm Bill which passed 79-14 on December 14, 2007. Additionally, the bill would allow RFS credit for broad categories of biomass from non-federal and tribal lands including agricultural commodities, plants and trees, algae, crop residue, waste material (including wood waste and wood residues), animal waste and byproducts (including fats, oils, greases, and manure), construction waste, and food and yard waste.
Walden added: "This bipartisan bill corrects those problems by using language already agreed to by an overwhelming bipartisan majority in the United States Senate and many members of the House who wanted to see it included in the energy bill. The Northwest is leading the movement to switch to smart, renewable fuels, and biomass will undeniably play a major part in this effort. In fact, according to the U.S. Forest Service, biomass has surpassed hydropower as the largest source of renewable energy in the country. Ensuring that biomass gathered from federal land counts toward the country's renewable fuels standard is a win for the health of our forests, and a win for America's smarter energy future."
Herseth Sandlin added: "By amending the definition of renewable biomass in the energy bill will greatly improve our ability to manufacture renewable energy from our forestlands, both public and private, all over the country. This would bring tremendous benefits, not only to our environment, to forest health, and to our national security, but it will also provide an economically viable outlet for forest byproducts that could revitalize the local economies of hundreds of small forest communities across the country."
Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.):
"Biomass utilization is an important component of our energy independence," DeFazio said. "This legislation will help many innovative companies around the nation that are actively developing new biomass technology. I am pleased to co-sponsor this legislation which will ensure that we take an environmentally sensitive and yet active approach towards stewardship of our federal forest lands and biomass development."
Rep. John E. Peterson (R-Penn.):
"Renewable energy produced from biomass on federal lands and Indian reservations should categorically count toward meeting the recently mandated Renewable Fuels Standards. Alternative energy producers looking to invest in federal regions will simply go elsewhere if this fix is not made, which will neither help us move in the direction of meeting the RFS, nor will it help small, forest communities. I am very pleased to join with a strong, bipartisan group of House members in offering this commonsense legislation. This correction should be made quickly, as our colleagues in the Senate have already passed legislation addressing this critical issue," said Peterson, whose district includes most of the Allegheny National Forest.
Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.):
"Not only does the current definition exclude a significant source of renewable biofuels, it creates a logistical nightmare for any ethanol or biodiesel plant that attempts to use woody biomass," Stupak said. "The prohibition is neither practical nor prudent. Timber is not sorted based on what type of forest it comes from."
Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (R-Mo.):
"The waste wood created through careful stewardship of our national forests can be put to good use as cellulosic ethanol. This bill will promote an important technology to supplement American energy independence with domestic, renewable fuels," U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson said.
Rep. Mike Ross (D-Ark.):
"The timber industry in South Arkansas plays a major role in the overall economic well-being of our state, and changing the definition of renewable biomass improves our ability to manufacture renewable energy from forestland including cellulosic ethanol," Ross said. "I am proud to join this bipartisan group committed to help sustain timber-related jobs across this nation."
Rep. Chip Pickering (R-Miss.):
Rep. Pickering said "The mission to increase and promote renewable energy through public-private partnerships and cooperatives should not be derailed because of needless restrictions on biomass from public lands. We can strengthen our domestic energy independence using smart land and resource management practices, and do it in an environmentally safe manner. Biomass is an inexpensive, safe, renewable energy source that provides great promise if we encourage it with smart public policy and private incentives."
Biomass projects that would be conducted under the authority of the Herseth Sandlin -Walden bill on federal lands would still have to comply with federal and state law and applicable land management plans. There is an additional requirement for old-growth maintenance, restoration, and management on federal lands as defined in the Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003.
More from Greg Walden:
The Herseth Sandlin - Walden Renewable Biomass Facilitation Act (H.R. 5236)
It's not the catchiest name, I'll admit. But don't judge a book by its cover. This bill is important to the renewable fuels industry and jobs in our forests. Let me explain how we came to write this bill.
As you may know, the energy bill recently signed into law helps nudge America toward greater energy independence by spurring research and production of alternative fuels. You see, scientists have figured out how to turn woody biomass from forests into fuels for vehicles. Several weeks ago the Department of Energy awarded a $24 million grant to an Oregon company to build one of the first cellulosic fuels refineries in the country. Given the amount of thinning and brush removal work needed in our forests, it only makes sense to turn that material into a clean-burning fuel.
The energy bill calls for the country to produce 36 billion gallons-a-year of biofuels. This renewable fuels standard (RFS) is aggressive, but also provides incentives to move away from corn-based ethanol and into fuels made from biomass.
But then the new law--as only Congress could write it--severely restricts what type of woody biomass will count toward meeting the new renewable fuels goals. Basically, the law puts off limits biomass from federal forests and even limits what counts off of private lands.
Well, from my point of view, either woody biomass when converted is a biofuel or it is not. Where that wood comes from shouldn't matter, since other forest practices acts govern harvest issues.
That's what the Renewable Biomass Facilitation Act (H.R. 5236), introduced by Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-SD), myself, and a group of eight bipartisan House colleagues, is all about. It mostly corrects those problems by using language already agreed to by an overwhelming bipartisan majority in the United States Senate and many members of the House who wanted to see it included in the energy bill. The Northwest is leading the movement to switch to smart, renewable fuels, and biomass will undeniably play a major part in this effort. In fact, according to the U.S. Forest Service, biomass has surpassed hydropower as the largest source of renewable energy in the country. Ensuring that biomass gathered from federal land counts toward the country's renewable fuels standard is a win for the health of our forests, and a win for America's smarter energy future.
And as we all know, as that biomass collects on our forest floors, the chances for catastrophic fire go up and up. I keep telling my colleagues on the Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming: If you want to get a handle on carbon emissions, you need to address the conditions that contribute to the record wildfires we've seen in recent years, which have spewed an incredible amount of carbon dioxide and other pollutants into the atmosphere. And, like the biomass facility I plan to visit next weekend in Josephine County demonstrates, we can prevent wildfire and create clean energy at the same time.
Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com
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RDMiller Posted 11:57 pm
11 Feb 2008
I'm getting very tired of this. It's like talking to someone wearing earplugs. You MUST improve your ability to listen to what someone else says and writes. You will not be taken seriously otherwise.
Your statement #1: The evidence you ask for is in the recent Science study. I trust the results of that study far more than I trust your opinion. The study is clear: growing certain kinds of crops, like switchgrass, on abandoned farmland CAN BE DONE without any negative effect on carbon sequestration. Stop arguing with this! You are sounding foolish.
The Study doesn't say it will be done sustainably.... just that it is quite possible.
Your statement #2: I SPECIFICALLY stated that I could only support use of forests for cellulosic ethanol IF IT IS SUPPORTED BY THE ENVIRONMENTAL COMMUNITY and done sustainably. That you question whether this can happen is, for all practical purposes, a useless statement. If you can't help demonstrate whether this is possible one way or another, then please just be quiet until those of us who believe it can be done work to demonstrate it. If it can't be done, so be it. I won't support it then.
3. Your statement #3: The fact that there is government funding for the development of cellulosic ethanol fits right in line with the billions of dollars of government funding over the years for solar, wind, electric vehicles and on and on. Why do you make such silly statements? Of course it could turn into a disaster if done poorly or if it turns out to be not viable. But many people with good intentions, skills and intelligence believe otherwise. Your negative attitude is based on your agenda. Please, prove to me that this endeavor can't be done well.
#4: This statement of yours, "preliminary research seems to show fairly conclusively that biomass-for-cellulosic-ethanol is really unlikely to be able to be done well or sustainably" speaks so clearly of your agenda again. Go ahead... prove your statement. Show the research that supports this statement.
Stop already. You are burying yourself and making your voice meaningless.
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amazingdrx Posted 12:38 am
12 Feb 2008
Try explaining this most obvious soil as carbon sink/GHG reality to corn state land speculators and ethanol refinery operators. It's not gonna work. Especially with pro-ethanol politicians, Barack and McCain, the presidential alternatives. And hedge funds inflating a farm land bubble.
Ride those gas guzzling tractors illegal corporate farm workers!
Oh, and GM just lost 722 million with their gas guzzler strategery. Their answer? Buy out more good jobs and export them offshore. Buy ads to tout the "Volt", which they have been promising to build for how long now?
And the subprime mortgage crisis is spreading to what were considered safer home loans to more affluent people.
Fuel farming is here to stay. And now corporate loggers will be subsidized to chip up saw logs to make fuel and leave the slash to fuel the next firestorm. Will the fuel be made offshore on foreign factory ships, like plywood was/is? So it goes.
Gotta say it, yet again. As after the bushwacking parts one and two. Nice job voting america! In advance.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Backcut Posted 12:55 am
12 Feb 2008
"And now corporate loggers will be subsidized to chip up saw logs to make fuel and leave the slash to fuel the next firestorm."
That's just buying into the last millenium's "party line". Obviously, you didn't read the article, dude! This is only talking about slash and submerchantable materials but, if you want to bury your head in the sand, we still have plenty of forests left to burn. With record fire seasons dominating and the Bush Administration doing nothing, this plays right into the hands of people who desire "wild" chapparal instead of managed, functioning forest ecosystems.
I'm currently looking at a new ad in the sidebar that says "...helps keep more trees in the forest" More trees isn't always better and the public refuses to accept that.
The new let-burn policies are firmly in place and we'll continue to see firestorms that kill people, destroy lives and heat our atmosphere.
There's your options....Choose wisely, grasshoppers.
Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com
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RDMiller Posted 12:58 am
12 Feb 2008
I have stayed with this game long enough. If and when you are your friends are ready to debate about facts, and answer questions with respect to the detail and specifics of the question, we may be able to engage again.
Until then, you should do yourself a favor and stop making your voice irrelevant. I really do believe you have something valuable to contribute, but your way of going about it is not working for you or your friends.
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amazingdrx Posted 1:13 am
12 Feb 2008
Then contractors employing illegal workers will put in a nice chemlawn or parking lot, or both!
All done with industry self (no) regulation.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Backcut Posted 1:26 am
12 Feb 2008
It's no wonder that politicians running for office don't want to touch the forest issues because it WILL come back to haunt them. My conscience is clear because I have been a part of the solution, folks.
Enjoy your fried spotted owls, bull trout, salmon, goshawks, snail darters and yellow salamanders. Got any BBQ sauce?!? Toasted marshmallows for dessert and crispy-fried snags to hug (at least until they turn into stumps)! THIS will be one of our legacies left for our offspring to deal with.
Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com
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GreyFlcn Posted 5:36 am
12 Feb 2008
http://www.alternet.org/environment/76782/?page=entire
Perhaps we could ask for a republish at Grist?
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amazingdrx Posted 5:50 am
12 Feb 2008
"Removing crop wastes means replacing the nutrients they contain with fertiliser, which causes further greenhouse gas emissions. A recent paper by the Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen suggests that emissions of nitrous oxide (a greenhouse gas 296 times more powerful than CO2) from nitrogen fertilisers wipe out all the carbon savings biofuels produce, even before you take the changes in land use into account."
"All the carbon savings biofuels produce?" Huh? All these new revalations and George still buys into that carbon cycle notion?
Well, who can blame almost everyone else for buying into that?
The big news is that chemical ag is emitting this gas, nitrous oxide, that is 296 times worse a GHG than CO2. That indicates that organic ag fertlized by recycled waste via biodigestion is the way to go.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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justlou Posted 6:29 am
12 Feb 2008
Many of our woodlands would be much healthier with reduced tree stand densities and with understories of native shrubs, grasses, sedges and forbs with the application of forest management involving regular burn cycles.
If we do achieve this goal of healthy forests which also reduce the dangerous threat of wildfire, would they be as attractive for biofuels? Does the biofuel industry have a stake in keeping our forests free of prescribed fire and loaded with excess fuels? Once this excess is removed and prescribed fires reintroduced, just how much biofuel would these properly managed forestlands sustain? It seems like the purveyors of waste wood ethanol have some stake in keeping forests unhealthy and loading up on excess fuels.
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Backcut Posted 7:36 am
12 Feb 2008
I think the potential for forest biofuels has caused Congress to side with the folks wanting an ethanol monopoly, in excluding stuff coming from Federal lands. I'm seeing the kneejerk reaction of accusations and rhetoric claiming we'll cut down every tree to make ethanol. Of course, that will never happen but, it stirs up the preservationists. If people could see it as a tool to help restore forests to a more natural state, there might be more support for thinning projects in our National Forests. Instead, people want to preserve unnaturally-dense, dying forests. We have a relatively small window to work with but, I just don't see that ANY Presidential candidate who is willing to "go out on a limb" and tell us their plan to save our forests. While Bush's "Healthy Forests Plan" didn't result in the mass clearcutting and old growth disposal that the eco's warned us about, he also didn't make them any healthier. That is unless you count his "Let-burn" program as being healthy for our forests.
Instead, I'm seeing that people are STILL punishing foresters for the sins of the LAST millenium. Self regulation?!?! What about the fact that National Forests in California have voluntarily banned both clearcutting AND high-grading WITHOUT a court battle?? Why?!? Because it was the right thing to do (for a bird that still isn't even on the Endangered Species List) and we needed to focus on "ecosystem management".
Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com
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Ron Steenblik Posted 7:55 am
12 Feb 2008
I have two questions for those of you (including O'Donnell) that have bronzed this analysis:
How can you be so supportive of a study that is so blatantly not an apples to apples comparison? Searchinger et el [sic] add indirect/upstream impacts to biofuels, then compare that analysis to a petroleum baseline for which they do NOT add indirect impacts. It's a total mechanical breakdown.
First of all, Searchinger et al. compare biofuels with the standard life-cycle emissions from their petroleum counterparts, as used in the U.S. Government's GREET model. For gasoline, the life-cycle emissions are 92 grams of CO2-equivalent per megajoule (MJ) of fuel. Of that, only 72 grams of that comes from combustion. The rest is emitted during upstream activities (4 grams) and refining (15 grams). (The numbers add up to 91 because of rounding.)
Mr. Coleman is right that the above life-cyce estimate does not include any greenhouse gas emissions associated with the disturbance of soil in producing the crude oil feedstock used to make oil. But that is likely to be a very small number, given that the carbon emitted by the land disturbed by an oil well (none for an off-shore well) is tiny compared with the amount of carbon extracted from underground.
The reason biofuels otherwise have benefits over petroleum is that life-cycle analyses credit biofuels with the carbon removed from the atmosphere in feedstocks by using land to do so. If one does that, as a matter basic accounting, one have to factor in the carbon sequestration foregone (and stored carbon lost) by devoting land to biofuels.
Mr. Coleman's then makes a second criticism:
How can you say this is a biofuels "bombshell" when the primary assumption right out of the gate is 30 bgy of corn ethanol. We produce 8 bgy now. the federal energy bill stops at 15 bgy through 2022!!!!!
Actually, they look at two levels: 15bgy and 30bgy. As the authors explain in the Supporting Online Material:
Our analysis uses a model developed by the Center for Agriculture and Rural Development (CARD), at Iowa State University based in significant part on models developed by the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI) at Iowa State and the University of Missouri. ... Our analysis permits the direct comparison of two different scenarios in the 2016 crop year: 55.84 billion liters [15 billion gallons] of U.S. ethanol from corn and 111.76 billion liters [30 billion gallons], a rise of 55.92 [billion] liters [30 billion gallons]. These differences reflect projections of ethanol use based on different prices of gasoline and different constraints on automobile use of ethanol, but the accuracy of those projections regarding the absolute use of ethanol are unimportant to this analysis. This analysis focuses on the rate of land use change emissions per unit of ethanol, which GREET expresses as emissions per kilometer using ethanol, and which we also express as emissions per mega joule in fuel. As discussed below, it is possible that these emissions per kilometer could differ for much larger levels of ethanol.
Their approach, in other words, was to start with some increase in biofuel, then to factor in the changes. But, ultimately, they convert everything to an amount of land-use change emissions per liter of biofuel (or per kilometer driven with the biofuel). Moreover, the key matters that will vary the analysis are not the amount of corn-based ethanol but the amount of biofuels in total, because all biofuels planted on cropland use land that competes with other land uses.
They discuss these issues at length in the supporting materials.
These are only my personal opinions.
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Ron Steenblik Posted 8:05 am
12 Feb 2008
... Our analysis permits the direct comparison of two different scenarios in the 2016 crop year: 55.84 billion liters [15 billion gallons] of U.S. ethanol from corn and 111.76 billion liters [30 billion gallons], a rise of 55.92 [billion] liters [15 billion gallons].
Note that although the total they model for 2016 is larger than mandated, the increase they model is only 2.5 bgy more than the growth in "Renewable Biofuel" (10 bgy) plus "Undifferentiated Advanced Biofuel" (2.5 bgy) -- basically, biodiesel -- between 2006 and 2016 mandated under the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007.
These are only my personal opinions.
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Biodiversivist Posted 8:30 am
12 Feb 2008
Sound familiar? Has George been lurking on the Gristmill?
Here is what he said about what he called an article back in 2005:
The last time I drew attention to the hazards of making diesel fuel from vegetable oils, I received as much abuse as I have ever been sent by the supporters of the Iraq war. The biodiesel missionaries, I discovered, are as vociferous in their denial as the executives of Exxon. I am now prepared to admit that my previous column was wrong. But they're not going to like it. I was wrong because I underestimated the fuel's destructive impact.
A more generic term would be "foaming at the mouth biofuel missionary." I was also critical of biodiesel back then and received more than my share of hate mail and even some threatening phone calls, one of which I recorded.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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justlou Posted 9:24 am
12 Feb 2008
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-greenhouse_1 ...
As oil becomes more difficult to source and refine, taking more energy in the entire process, CO2 emissions will increase per unit of oil extracted from the process.
This is why it is so very urgent that we first begin doing every thing possible to drastically cut petroleum consumption. In light of many of these recent reports energy policies such as our new CAFE standards are dangerously inadequate. Watching new car ads on TV is just so depressing.
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GreyFlcn Posted 9:25 am
12 Feb 2008
http://greyfalcon.net/biolimits.png
http://greyfalcon.net/fossilenergy.png
http://greyfalcon.net/coskata
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Biodiversivist Posted 10:56 am
12 Feb 2008
It takes some practice and a measure of discipline to debate on Internet forums. Internet debate can be a wonderful tool for learning and critique. There has never been anything like it in all of human history. It's not really a place for verbal fistfights, which in the real world end when people walk away or punch one another. On the Internet, these hate fests can go on for days as guys with elevated testosterone levels goad one another on with verbal jabs. Reminds me of how my daughter's roosters would go after each other.
Some guys can become very brazen on Internet forums, safe behind their Internet firewalls. They say things they would never say to a guy sitting within arm's reach on the next bar stool. Your behavior here is stereotypical in this sense. It is also stereotypically abusive like those biodiesel missionaries Monbiot referred to a few years ago.
RBcoleman popped in to lend you support. Coleman, a major supporter of corn ethanol, was debated to a standstill here and here a few posts back. He was also condescending to Gristmill commenters and repeatedly calls other's arguments " baloney." He has taken to labeling anyone critical of crop based biofuels as members of the "anti farmed fuel crowd." I see Steenblik took him to task.
You should also be addressing each response separately. You give generic responses addressed to everyone on the thread using phrases like "You and your friends" (repeated four times) and "...folks like amazingdrx, justlou, diodiversivist and others ...biodiversivist, amazingdrx, justlou, etc..."as if everyone shares the same viewpoints (which they don't)
For example, I'm not for land use change and apparently, you are not for land use change either, except on abandoned farmland. So, where do you and I disagree on this thread? This is another case where you should be taking some of your own advice:
"LISTEN to what I say and then respond ONLY to what I say."
As near as I can tell, these are a bunch of kids whose hearts are well meaning and have a fire burning within. I understand that and actually appreciate it. In time, they'll learn how to debate respectfully, and in particular, really listen openly to others and consider budging from their stated positions when the facts so dictate. But you're right. It is probably a waste of my time to hope this might occur now.
I guffawed my coffee back into my cup when I read the above. Kids? "In time they will learn to debate respectfully?" and "It's not my nature to be offensive?" Your self-image is seriously out of phase with my perspective. Here are some more offensive and disrespectful remarks you've made in this farce you think is a debate since I last called you on the carpet. After a commenter says:
Thanks for your clear statement of position. Here's a quick but I hope equally clear, respectful and non-swarming response.
... you light off with yet another spittle flecked diatribe:
You really don't listen well ... I'm getting very tired of this. It's like talking to someone wearing earplugs. You MUST improve your ability to listen to what someone else says and writes. You will not be taken seriously otherwise ... Stop arguing with this! You are sounding foolish ... a useless statement ... then please just be quiet until those of us who believe it can be done work to demonstrate it ... Why do you make such silly statements? ... Go ahead... prove your statement. Show the research that supports this statement. Stop already. You are burying yourself and making your voice meaningless ... do yourself a favor and stop making your voice irrelevant.
Your explanation of what constitutes an agenda also fell pretty flat. Interestingly enough, you have since gone on to use the word "agenda" ten more times bringing your total to about 30 instances in just two threads!
Note that I have not really participated in any debate on this thread. I'm pretty agnostic on the subject of cellulosic, preferring to spend my time and energy discussing fuels that actually exist. I'm just appalled by the rudest most abusive string of comments I've ever encountered on the Gristmill. Congratulations. That's quite an honor.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Biodiversivist Posted 11:16 am
12 Feb 2008
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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spaceshaper Posted 11:20 am
12 Feb 2008
Woo. Someone's getting cranky!
Your statement #1: The evidence you ask for is in the recent Science study.
Which recent Science study would that be? Is there a citation somewhere in your comments above that I have missed?
I trust the results of that study far more than I trust your opinion. The study is clear: growing certain kinds of crops, like switchgrass, on abandoned farmland CAN BE DONE without any negative effect on carbon sequestration. Stop arguing with this! You are sounding foolish.
Again, which is the study that makes me look foolish?
The Study doesn't say it will be done sustainably.... just that it is quite possible.
Uhuh.
Your statement #2: I SPECIFICALLY stated that I could only support use of forests for cellulosic ethanol IF IT IS SUPPORTED BY THE ENVIRONMENTAL COMMUNITY and done sustainably. That you question whether this can happen is, for all practical purposes, a useless statement. If you can't help demonstrate whether this is possible one way or another, then please just be quiet until those of us who believe it can be done work to demonstrate it. If it can't be done, so be it. I won't support it then.
Please, go ahead and demonstrate it. Meanwhile, should we all shut up, or just me?
3. Your statement #3: The fact that there is government funding for the development of cellulosic ethanol fits right in line with the billions of dollars of government funding over the years for solar, wind, electric vehicles and on and on. Why do you make such silly statements? Of course it could turn into a disaster if done poorly or if it turns out to be not viable. But many people with good intentions, skills and intelligence believe otherwise. Your negative attitude is based on your agenda. Please, prove to me that this endeavor can't be done well.
The corn ethanol and palm oil biodiesel disasters are well-documented. Forgive my skepticism, but at this stage in the game I think the onus is on cellulosic proponents to demonstrate that their next miracle fuel is sustainable, not for the rest of us to disprove it.
And while we're on the subject, my agenda is what, precisely?
#4: This statement of yours, "preliminary research seems to show fairly conclusively that biomass-for-cellulosic-ethanol is really unlikely to be able to be done well or sustainably" speaks so clearly of your agenda again. Go ahead... prove your statement. Show the research that supports this statement.
How about the studies that are the subject of the original post above, for starters: "ethanol produced both by corn and switchgrass could worsen global warming....these studies really challenges orthodox thinking and prior assumptions about the impact of biofuels on greenhouse gas production. ..."When you take (land use changes) into account, most of the biofuel that people are using or planning to use would probably increase greenhouse gases substantially".
Please note that I have no objection to managing forestland in principle, and I accept the possibility that cellulosic ethanol from forest thinnings may be an exception to the above analysis: however I still question whether liquid fuel production is the best and most beneficial use of such biomass material. I have suggested other options above, even energy-producing ones: am I to understand that my "agenda" is simply not sharing your apparent preoccupation with liquid transportation fuels?
Stop already. You are burying yourself and making your voice meaningless.
Ah well. Silly me.
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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RDMiller Posted 8:18 pm
12 Feb 2008
I really am too busy to continue this round. I've made my point. A few don't wish to hear it, preferring instead to continue arguing just to be right. I hope some of what I said had some value to others.
To you bullies... and you know who you are... you've just got to learn how to leave your agenda behind and debate simply on fact and merit. Darn... there's that word agenda again. What the heck does that mean?
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justlou Posted 10:07 pm
12 Feb 2008
Sometimes it takes an agenda to fight other ridiculously misguided agendas, particularly those driven more by blindly, shortsighted politics versus longterm, scientifically guided points of view.
Robert Rapier has summed this all up quite elegantly and concisely in:
The Politics of Renewable Energy: Unintended Consequences of Biofuel Policies
http://www.e-ir.info/?p=327
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bookerly Posted 10:39 pm
12 Feb 2008
The deliberate promotion of policies that will lead to mass starvation should alone be enough to give people pause. Again and again, folks have warned that biofuels will convert land from food production to fuel at a time when population is increasing, AND global warming is stressing agricultural systems.
This alone should kill the whole idea. (And for some it does.).
For those who continue to advocate biofuels, what is your suggestion as to how the poor should get food? 1) Kill the rich and take it. 2) Eat the rich. 3) They should just die so I can be a pig 4) I never think about the poor. 5) Some deux-ex-machina will save them 6) Frankly, world, I don't give a damn 7) Other
patrick in Beijing
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LegumeSam Posted 12:50 am
13 Feb 2008
Biofuels aren't about "Peak Oil." The energy return on energy invested simply isn't good enough, and anyway the capitalist world's voracious demand for fuel energy will rather soon dwarf the world's ability to produce biofuels.
Biofuels are, however, about getting subsidies from the US Federal government, which prints the world's reserve currency and which is highly vulnerable to pecuniary persuasion in an age in which finance capital has hypertrophied to make up for the slowing down of the global economic growth rate.
http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus
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amazingdrx Posted 1:22 am
13 Feb 2008
Capitalism can be regulated to serve humankind. Instead of serving up humanity as a commodity to feed the corporate bottomline. Cheap labor, consumers, and cannon fodder, is that all humans are good for? Like animals trapped in CAFO (confined animal feeding operation) hell.
There is a really great industrial food expose' film from Germany on Sundance lately. "Our Daily Bread". Check it out.
http://www.sundancechannel.com/films/500198049
Almost no dialogue, just animals, pigs, chickens, cows, and the humans that are cogs in the CAFO machinery.
Also some footage on greenhouse/chem/veggie production. The humans become indistinguishable from the animals, except that the animals are set for slaughter. But really, doesn't the industrial society farm humans as well?
We are all chattle on the all hat, no cattle duuhbyaist ranch. Think of Orwell's "Animal Farm", which candidate will be a better farmer in chief?
Can Barack set the animals, including US human animals, free? I think we all ought to heed the warnings of anti-cruelty activists and boycott industrial farming as a model for our culture.
How we treat the most helpless of organisms reflects our whole point of view. Free the soil bacteria! Stop chemical ag torture and muder of the soil ecosystem! It's in that vein, bacterial rights, animal rights, all the way up the spectrum to human rights. Free the chickens!!
It's shocking to see baby chicks shuttled through a conveyor system like parts on a mass production line. Cheeping all the way. Check out the movie.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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justlou Posted 1:41 am
13 Feb 2008
Attempting to force low density, energy inputs into a system built on dense energy inputs will lead to all kinds of inflationary insanity and conflicts among competing needs (e.g. food vs. fuel).
And our capitalist system that has been hijacked by money managers that are absconding with much needed capital for the sake of building huge personal fortune is threatening our future. Unfortunately our political system has aided in this folly, along with the folly of an unnecessary war. The house of cards is collapsing. Is it worth rebuilding or should we be picking up the pieces and building a truly sustainable system that reflects real vs. artificial value. We can't keep supporting such folly and creating sustainable alternatives with the same limited resources. At some point I truly hope that an alternative vision would emerge in our current political process, but such big visions may just be too bold for the holders of folly.
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LegumeSam Posted 1:54 am
13 Feb 2008
In theory this is possible, but only in a hypothetical economy composed entirely of lines of business in which growth is boosted entirely by increases in efficiency. (I'm going to leave the problem of the mechanical operation of such a hypothetical economy up to the engineers, as I think we're on Cloud Nine with that one.) Otherwise, growth means more resource use. In the real-world economy, there have been great increases in efficiency per labor unit, but the laborers themselves have seen little or no benefit from these increases in efficiency, as all increases in the surplus have gone to the investor class. Meanwhile, over the past thirty years the growth rate has declined, and so the financial system has hypertrophied.
Capitalism can be regulated to serve humankind. Instead of serving up humanity as a commodity to feed the corporate bottomline. Cheap labor, consumers, and cannon fodder, is that all humans are good for?
Capitalism is the serving up of humanity as a commodity to feed the bottom line. The point of capitalism is to deprive people of a right to live off of the land, i.e to secede from the money economy, so as to force them to depend upon the money economy for daily subsistence.
http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus
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LegumeSam Posted 2:19 am
13 Feb 2008
And our capitalist system that has been hijacked by money managers that are absconding with much needed capital for the sake of building huge personal fortune is threatening our future.
I have come around to the view that the money managers were in charge before the current, neoliberal economic order, but that only under the current neoliberal economic order is the economy as a whole turned to self-destructive ends for the sake of corporate profit.
Capital is not "much needed." Rather, free labor could itself create the new, post-carbon world all by itself, were it not obliged by the capitalist system to work for capital.
http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus
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GreyFlcn Posted 2:43 am
13 Feb 2008
http://greyfalcon.net/coskata
http://greyfalcon.net/cellulosics
If the GOP are good at anything, they are good at "bait and switch" sales pitches.
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rbcoleman Posted 3:08 am
13 Feb 2008
A response to Ron ... (thanks Ron for the response, first of all) ...
Issue 1: My issue is the reports incorporate indirect impacts for biofuels and not oil. Your response is they used GREET for oil. You acknowledge that GREET has some upstream impacts (like oil transportation), but not indirect impacts like land use. So we seem to agree. This is an apples to oranges comparison because the biofuels analysis has indirect and the oil does not. A couple things more: (a) it does not make me feel better that the land use impacts will be small for oil; either way, this should be apples to apples. Plus, the indirect impacts (land use +) are likely huge, and isn't the point to get the full carbon footprint right for both and compare them? And future oil solutions (shale, sands) will be much larger than that ... why compare a future biofuel to yesterday's oil? Big problem. Another way to put this is this: Searchinger takes GREET and adds a bunch of indirect impacts to the biofuels side, but then relies on GREET for oil without adding any indirect impacts. Its pretty blatant.
Issue 2: On the 30 bgy you point to the supporting materials. Problem is, the supporting materials say the same thing I did in a different way. Your cite is another way of saying, and I paraphrase, "we took a 15 bgy baseline and compared it to a 30 bgy projection." Yeah, sure, you can compare the two, but the entire report is based on the 30 bgy spike, not the 15 bgy baseline. I believe that your reference to the federal bill is misguided too. Searchinger uses corn ethanol inputs only, and the corn ethanol requirement in the federal bill is very clear ... 15 bgy by 2016, but then no more than that through 2022. What folks are now realizing is that the model probably does not produce a discernible land use response at 15 bgy, so they had to go higher. Problem is, our corn ethanol policy stops at 15 bgy.
Please folks, do not lambast me with a series of abstract responses that I am trying to destroy the land use argument or am anti- land use. We need to look upstream, but we need to do it in a responsible way. My humble opinion is this thread is quick to celebrate these studies as a "gotcha" without thinking about the methodologies. Ron, your thoughts would be interesting to me.
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amazingdrx Posted 3:20 am
13 Feb 2008
What about family farms? Different farming groups specializing in different skills, blacksmithing, lumber making, milling, then small business arising from that. The original model of real competitive capitalism, small business.
The point of that form of capitalism is to live with the land. We need to get back to that model. Buy electric fuel for your car from a neighbor with a wind farm, instead of gas from multinational oil corps.
It can be done with small capitalism, investment in solar, wind, biogas systems, traded over the grid. Fairly and freely with neighbors. Paying the utility a small fee to manage the grid. But that takes a special kind of re-regulation of utilities. To protect a free market in clean kwh. No futures traders or hedge funds or carbon trading meddling in it.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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LegumeSam Posted 4:13 am
13 Feb 2008
Farmers have existed long before capitalism, and would no doubt prefer to be out from under capitalism, so that they can produce without being muscled around by big business and finance entities, who yank their dependence upon the money economy so that it becomes a dependence upon them. Small business was the heroic ideal of Adam Smith, who wanted small business out from under the thumb of big business, the real original model of real competitive capitalism and the purveyor of the enclosure laws which drove the peasants off of the commons so that they could be forced into the cities.
Pottery finds from archaeological digs, btw, reveal big business to have significantly predated capitalism, too -- see Bryan Ward-Perkins' "The Fall of Rome"...
The process of driving people into cities whence they become slum-dwellers is, moreover, the main engine of human population growth today, and we all know how good that is for terrestrial ecosystems.
The point of that form of capitalism is to live with the land.
The point of all forms of capitalism is to enclose the means of production so that it becomes the private reserve of an owning class; in this way a working class can be made to sell its labor cheaply, so that profit can be made off a larger surplus than would otherwise accrue to the owning class. On the other hand, the point of peasant production, rendered impractical in an economy based upon competition for market share, is to live with the land, something I would readily endorse. See, e.g. Maria Mies and Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen's "The Subsistence Perspective".
http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus
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LegumeSam Posted 4:34 am
13 Feb 2008
At the beginning of the capitalist era many of these tasks were handled by the artisans, who formed a vanguard in opposition to capitalism at the beginning of the 19th c. in England. See E. P. Thompson's The Making of the English Working Class...
http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus
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amazingdrx Posted 5:26 am
13 Feb 2008
I will try to answer your last posts after some thinking, and skiing. Sunny weather here, snow covered spring is in the air.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Ron Steenblik Posted 10:13 am
13 Feb 2008
Your first issue is that Searchinger et al. took the life-cycle emissions from the GREET model and added a bunch of indirect impacts to the biofuels side, but then relied on GREET for oil without adding any indirect impacts. I'm not sure what you mean by "it's pretty blatant". But I think we can agree that what matters is how important is the omission of indirect land-use effects from petroleum exploration and production to the results.
I do not know the answer to that question. But if I were pressed to hazard a guess, I would argue that since the land directly disturbed by petroleum production is relatively small compared with the energy extracted, I would also expect that any indirect effects of displacing a land-dependent activity as a result of engaging in petroleum-related activities is also going to be small. That said, I agree that, at the margin, producing petroleum from oil sands and, perhaps eventually, oil shales, could have a significant footprint.
Regarding your second concern -- that Timothy Searchinger et al. modelled a bigger expansion of corn-ethanol production than is currently mandated -- we should bear in mind that the paper was submitted to Science in October 2007, two months before the details of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 were known. Throughout 2007, several members of Congress were proposing mandating levels of biofuel use of 60 and even 100 billion gallons per year.
Those mandates would have kicked in later than 2016, but I suspect (though will have to verify) that the model that Searchinger and colleagues used could only project out as far as 2016. If people like Amani Elobeid, Jacinto Fabiosa, and Simla Tokgoz (of the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development at Iowa State University -- IMHO, one of the best groups in the country working on biofuels) had had misgivings about the approach taken, I am pretty sure they would not have agreed to be co-authors.
That is as far as I should probably speculate, as I was not involved with the study. But I have been in correspondence with one of the co-authors and will raise your questions and concerns with him.
These are only my personal opinions.
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GreyFlcn Posted 1:34 pm
13 Feb 2008
http://greyfalcon.net/svlglca.png
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/02/new-studies-ide.h ...
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Ron Steenblik Posted 4:32 pm
13 Feb 2008
What is interesting in the second link, however, is the very pertinent set of questions written in by the first commentator, who is identified only as Jer:
It would be interesting and informative, I think, if we could generate a world map of all 'abandoned agricultural lands planted with perennials' that create this so-called 'feedstock uptake credit' (greenhouse gas credit) that have the potential to be populated with the appropriate biomass. These techniques and approaches sound good in theory, but what is the overall potential when all areas are accounted for? Is there cost-effective access to each area? Does the ethanol produced in this way satisfy a significant portion of anticipated demand? What about the infrastructure to distribute?
Quite so. As I wrote earlier in this string, the term "abandoned farmland" is deceptive. Most of the land in the United States that was once farmed but no longer is, has since reverted to other uses, either rangeland or forest. (Much of that land was abandoned many decades ago precisely because it was unsuitable for farming on a sustainable basis.) And a reasonable amount has been gobbled up for homes, roads, golf courses, etc.
Jer in the above quote asks the right questions. Somebody needs to take a hard look at the remaining "abandoned farmland" and start winnowing down what of that could actually produce harvestable biomass on a sustainable basis ... and I mean economically as well as environmentally, even after accounting for differences in environmental externalities between bio-energy and its alternatives.
These are only my personal opinions.
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GreyFlcn Posted 11:05 pm
13 Feb 2008
http://www.its.ucdavis.edu/publications/2006/UCD-ITS-RR-0 ...
As well as specifically where the data was posted, which was Table ES-3, page 13 in this document.
http://www.energy.ca.gov/low_carbon_fuel_standard/UC-1000 ...
Now the thing I'm wonder about is that if you read a bit down further, Mark Delucchi actually made a comment on this post.
The basic point of these studies is correct: the development of biofuels can cause changes in land use that lead to relatively large emissions of carbon from soils and biomass. Indeed, this basic finding has been known, and quantified, for almost 20 years. The Searchinger et al. paper does do something relatively new: it uses an agricultural model to estimate global changes in production and consumption, the first step in estimating emissions due to land use change. (It also has a detailed treatment of changes in land use by type of ecosystem.) However, both papers suffer three serious general deficiencies, apart from whatever legitimate questions one might have about details of the modeling.
First, the studies do not have a complete conceptual treatment of what happens over time. Most importantly, they ignore the carbon sequestration that will tend to happen when the biofuel programs end and the land-use changes that occurred at the start of the program are reversed. Related to this, the explicit or implicit treatment of the timing of impacts in the studies - namely, that there is no distinction to be made between climate impacts that occur today and climate impacts that occur many decades from now - is not economically realistic.
Second, changes in land use affect much more than just carbon stocks in soils and biomass: they also affect albedo, hydrodynamics, the nitrogen cycle, dust emissions, and more. All of these omitted factors can have significant effects on climate, and not all of these effects are "bad" (i.e., warming). Without doing a comprehensive analysis of all of the climate-relevant effects of land-use change, it is not possible to make general statements about the effects of land-use change on climate.
Third, both studies add emissions from land-use change to emissions from the rest of the lifecycle of biofuels, and then make general statements about how considering land-use change affects total emissions from and the overall desirability of biofuels. However, there is as yet no remotely good model of emissions from the "rest" of the life cycle of biofuels, and as a result it is not possible to make any definitive statements about the overall impact of considering land-use change emissions in lifecycle analysis.
In sum, these studies highlight an important (and generally well known) effect of the development of biofuels, but leave out a great many important factors, and do not tell us anything definitive about the overall impact of biofuels on climate.
Mark Delucchi
Institute of Transportation Studies
University of California, Davis
http://www.its.ucdavis.edu/people/faculty/delucchi
I questioned him a bit on this, but I was wondering what was your opinion about this statement?
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GreyFlcn Posted 11:52 pm
13 Feb 2008
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/ngreene
Fortunately, we knew about these dynamic before yesterday, and we've won a preemptive victory in getting the dynamics written into the legislation in the form of the land-use safeguards and minimum (20% reduction) lifecycle GHG standards
Although I've heard a rumor that corn ethanol processed with natural gas or biomass cogen is automatically assumed to bypass this requirement.
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/02/epa-sets-us-ren.h ...
Can anyone else confirm this?
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Biodiversivist Posted 2:50 am
14 Feb 2008
Which is round about way of saying that all preceding studies have also left out a great many important factors as well and that there are no definitive studies detailing the overall impact of biofuels on climate. But that didn't stop our government from mandating the use of biofuels, did it? These studies are a very good start in that direction. The theory of evolution is, after all still a theory, still debated, and still not accepted by most Americans.
Sometimes one has to step back from the science and apply a little common sense. Should we replace our remaining biodiversity carbon sinks with biofuel monocrops?
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Biodiversivist Posted 3:03 am
14 Feb 2008
Which is a round-about way of saying that all preceding studies have also left out a great many important factors as well and that there are no definitive studies detailing the overall impact of biofuels on climate. But that didn't stop our government from mandating the use of biofuels, did it? These studies are a very good start in that direction. There will never be a "definitive" uncontested study of the overall impact of biofuels on climate. The theory of evolution is, after all still a theory, still debated, and still not accepted by most Americans.
Sometimes one has to step back from the science and apply a little common sense. Should we replace our remaining biodiversity carbon sinks with biofuel monocrops? How exactly can you prevent Indonesia and Brazil from converting their forests and grasslands into biofuel if America and the EU will buy every last drop they can produce? The EU is slowly coming to this conclusion thanks to continued critique from concerned environmentalists.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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greeniemeanie Posted 3:16 pm
18 Feb 2008
I'm glad people are paying attention, but other people have been talking about it for years.
Ethanol and biodiesel are at best transitional fuels, and we need to track the entire fuel cycle to determine if a fuel is green. If we can put together a rational policy towards them, we can certainly use them temporarily, but we have no rational policy.
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amazingdrx Posted 4:31 pm
18 Feb 2008
The POV was/is that since the CO2 from the biofuel is reabsorbed by the crops, it's GHG free. Pretty dopey nonsense. But so is everything supported by this whole cultural phenomenon of mass delusion.
80% of US backed the Iraq war? based on WMD and Saddam causing 911. Mass delusional media makes for one dumbass country.
Feeling good about bah-rock star politics? So is the vast majority, once again.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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m7o7n7k Posted 7:56 pm
31 Jul 2008
Carbon emission technologies are infeasible beyond about 30 years.
Clearly there are not enough sustainable resources for existing population.
The answer is not not to hope that we can come up with some pie-in-the-sky technological solution to this quandry. The obvious answer is: reduce the population.
monk
Seattle, WA
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