rbcoleman’s Recent Comments

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  Interesting Discussion Here

  http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/ngreene/biofuels_not_qu ...

  I hope this is not bad form. I dont know blog rules very well.On Biofuels not helpful in climate-change fight, new studies say posted 1 year, 9 months ago 28 Responses

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  My Questions Are Not Answered

  First, to biodiversivist. Enough labeling. It is clear you regard yourself as a leader of the swarm, and you like to make silly inflammatory comments like "taken to task". Ron's response is thoughtful and mature, so I am eager to respond. Please do not bother writing another proud, loathing post about me. I am done with you, and my finger hurts from having to scroll through your rants/posts.

  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.On Researchers find corn ethanol, switchgrass could worsen global warming posted 1 year, 9 months ago 111 Responses

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  Eye Opening?

  I am again sad to see what could be a useful debate dragged down to personal baloney by the usual suspects (read: anti farmed fuel crowd). RDMiller: they will swarm until you are gone.

  I have two questions for those of you (including O'Donnell) that have bronzed this analysis:

  1. 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.

  2. 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.On Researchers find corn ethanol, switchgrass could worsen global warming posted 1 year, 9 months ago 111 Responses

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  Justlou

  I did not respond to you because I think we agree. There is no question that there are risks to remaining dependent on foreign oil, and there are risks to staking 10% of our "gasoline" demand to corn ethanol by 2015. Some experts believe that 15 bgy is reasonable, others like yourself think it rather dangerous. But there are protections in the proposed policy, such as GHG standards and land use. A very large coalition of environmental groups now support the federal RFS because of the protections.

  One interesting article is here ...

  http://www.ers.usda.gov/AmberWaves/May07SpecialIssue/Feat ...

  ... I am sure there are plenty more on both sides of the debate.On The neverending debate on corn ethanol continues posted 1 year, 11 months ago 20 Responses

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  Fair Enough

  My post was a bit dismissive. Chalk it up to heated debate. I should clarify.

  The reference I made was indeed to your biodiesel page ... and the text reference was ...

  From this study: "Not all LCA models treat emissions the same, even when they are included. For instance, GREET does not include N2O emissions from atmospheric nitrogen fixed by soybeans, while LEM does, contributing to an almost order-of-magnitude greater estimate of GWI for soybean biodiesel."

  Your reference links to this study ...

  http://www.energy.ca.gov/low_carbon_fuel_standard/UC-1000 ...

  ... I believe it is worth mentioning that this study then chooses not to adopt the model you highlight, and chooses one that happens to conclude that corn ethanol has GHG benefits in many common scenarios (see page 13 of the study).

  This is one of the most respected energy analysis groups in the country. UC-B acknowledges that we must improve our understanding of upstream impacts and improve GREET, but in my opinion, the citation is misleading ... or at least incomplete.

  On the risk premium side, Daniel Yergin of Cambridge Energy Research Associates testified before Congress in 2006 that the risk premium was around $15 (crude was between 60-70/brl). In the last year+ the risks and prices have grown. I do not have an electronic link to his testimony but I am sure there is one if you are interested.

  I do not understand your criticism of my risk premium reference (as strawman). The original argument was that protecting and subsidizing the costs of getting oil to market have little effect on price because it's all about the price of crude. I countered that even the perception of risk changes the price of crude. So if that's the case, and the removal of govt protections increased volatility in the crude oil marketplace, then it seems that retail price will be implicated.

  I hope that helps.On The neverending debate on corn ethanol continues posted 1 year, 11 months ago 20 Responses