I took Environmental Studies 101 during my first college semester 20 years ago (Fall 1989) with Dick Andrus, a professor who has just marked 36 years of teaching at Binghamton University. I thought it'd be good to check back with him and see what he's talking about in that class now.

Erik: What are your new Envi 101 students like? They coming to the class more 'eco-savvy' than my class did?

Dick: I don't think so. They don't seem to connect much with environmental issues. They've done a lot of computer gaming and television watching but very little camping and almost no hunting. And probably less than 1% have eaten roadkill! Though I do have one student who catches and eats squirrels at his apartment in Binghamton. 

Used to be that you ended the last lecture with 'well, that's where we're at: so either work to be part of the solution, or eat drink and be merry.' How do you end it now?

My message is now more of ‘good luck dealing with what is coming.' I leave them with something between Bill McKibben and Derrick Jensen. From McKibben it's how to get the best out of less resource-rich world and with Jensen it's we don't have a choice but work to fix things.

In 1989 you were critiquing corn ethanol, talking about climate change, and sustainable agriculture. What are you talking about now that's similarly ahead of the curve?

It's getting harder to get ahead of the curve without crashing going around it. But my corn ethanol critique is getting stronger, more along the lines of it being the stupidest idea for mankind but a great idea for ADM & Cargill. I do a lot these days on food and what our eating habits do to us, our environment, and other people. I have also become quite critical about the "no-meat solution," by trying to teach students that farming without animals (for dairy products and meat) is ridiculously unsustainable in our region. I also try and teach them "more power" is a bad solution and that power corrupts one's relationship to the environment, a la Jensen and Draffan's "Strangely Like War" critique of forestry.  

Years before I got there, you and some others persuaded the University to not build dorms in an adjacent woodland, which then became its enormous Nature Preserve. It's now recognized as a jewel of the campus, a great 'lab' for ecological teaching and research with its mixed hardwoods, wetlands, and clearings, and also its trail complex makes for popular recreation. How rare is this asset relative to other colleges?

With several purchases since you were here we now have about 700 acres of undeveloped land as part of the campus. From the results of an independent study a few years ago we now know that this is the biggest, and probably most diverse such (campus) preserve in the US, and it is used all the time by countless students and locals. As a result of a very generous endowment we even have a Steward of the Natural Areas who does field trips, habitat management, trail upkeep, invasive species removal, and even teaches a natural history course. 

What have some of your students gone on to do that you're happy about?

How about becoming Mayor of Binghamton? Matt Ryan was an Environmental Studies major. He's been very supportive of environmental initiatives like shade trees and community gardens - a huge change for the city of Binghamton. Then there are the organic farmers - several have stayed local and their farms have become destinations for the (Ecological Agriculture class) field trips that they once took themselves! 

Still biking to campus every day?

Not much. I've fallen into the habit of driving my little pickup truck which I use to scavenge lumber, firewood, compost material etc on my way to and from school.

What new environmental courses are you offering now?

I'm teaching my third round of Environmental Literature, in which many of the books are by writers who regularly appear in Orion magazine. I do a mix of fiction & non-fiction, and I think some of the fiction offers a better take on our situation than non-fiction. I especially like "World Made by Hand" by James Kunstler, "The Memory of Old Jack" by Wendell Berry, "Galapagos" by Kurt Vonnegut and Amitav Ghosh's "The Hungry Tide."

Oh, and anything by Barbara Kingsolver!

If you had unlimited time and resources, what's one course you'd like to offer? Cryptozoology, maybe?

Plant psychology! And what's so funny about cryptozoology? Actually I'd like to have the time to teach mosses again but I don't see that happening. Just too many higher priorities. I'll be happy if I can just hang onto Envi Lit.

You've been taking students to Costa Rica for the lab portion of your tropical forest ecology class for about 20 years now. How are the studies and restoration efforts on that degraded piece of former grazing land going?

The restoration project is called the Tropical Forestry Initiative and every July I take about 15 students there for a month, where we learn tropical ecology and do real conservation work planting trees and erosion control plants. We've gotten more & more involvement from the locals, our original plantings are quite large trees now and the wildlife is moving back in. We're expanding our interest a bit into more sustainable food production and have several thriving and tasty tilapia populations.  

We plant mixed stands of native species (Wes Jackson's approach of using nature as a model) that includes legumes, some faster growing trees, some with more valuable wood, some better near streams, some slow growing. And we're now working on mixing in fruit trees as an added incentive to the locals (who might want income & food) and to gringos (who are attracted to the idea of trees that attract birds, monkeys etc).

What's your prognosis for the 'environment' and for humans? Think we can figure out a way to have both?

That's a huge question. We've spent a long time and tremendous amounts of energy digging the hole we're in and we still haven't stopped digging! The climate question trumps all, of course, as we still have only a dim idea of how that will play out. After teaching for 36 years that we need to do something serious to prevent a major disaster, and then seeing us do little except the same thing, it's hard to be a real optimist.  I have almost no sense of how it will play out.

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Corn-based meat and ethanol: burning the planet to a crisp

What Gourmet’s critics missed

Corn harvest in Iowa. Would you like that in your Big Mac, your gas tank, or both?Photo courtesy of USDA NRCS. What do industrially produced meat and corn-based ethanol have in common?

Well, they both thrive on the assumption that it's good idea to devote vast swaths of land to an incredibly resource-intensive crop--corn--and then run that crop through an energy-sucking process to create a product of dubious value.

And ... they both got tagged as major drivers of climate change this past week.

Ethanol took the harder blow of the two, I think. It came wrapped in the Oct. 23 issue of Science. In a concise and devastating "policy forum" piece, a team of authors led by University of Minnesota researcher Tim Searchinger fingered a gaping defect in existing European and pending U.S. climate policy: biofuel gets treated as carbon-neutral, ignoring carbon emissions from land-use change. According to the paper ($ub req'd), the Kyoto Protocol, the European Union's cap-and-trade law, and the final version of Waxman-Markey (the House climate bill that passed over the summer) all contain the a "far-reaching but fixable flaw":

[They] does not count CO2 emitted from tailpipes and smokestacks when bioenergy is being used, but it also does not count changes in emissions from land use when biomass for energy is harvested or grown. This accounting erroneously treats all bioenergy as carbon neutral regardless of the source of the biomass, which may cause large differences in net emissions. For example, the clearing of long-established forests to burn wood or to grow energy crops is counted as a 100% reduction in energy emissions despite causing large releases of carbon.

Or, as Searchinger put it to a Wall Street Journal reporter, "Literally, in theory, if you chopped up the Amazon, turned it into a parking lot, and burned the wood in a power plant, that would be treated as a carbon-emissions reduction strategy."

The implications of the flaw are staggering: existing climate law, coupled with U.S. and European biofuel mandates, could lead to vast forest clearing--unleashing a gusher of greenhouse gases in the name of ... averting climate change. That's sort of like trying to save your sight by gouging out your eyes. The authors state:

One study estimated that a global CO2 target of 450 ppm under this accounting would cause bioenergy crops to expand to displace virtually all the world's natural forests and savannahs by 2065, releasing up to 37 gigatons (Gt) of CO2 per year (comparable to total human CO2 emissions today). Another study predicts that, based solely on economic considerations, bioenergy could displace 59% of the world's natural forest cover and release an additional 9 Gt of CO2 per year to achieve a 50% "cut" in greenhouse gases by 2050. The reason: When bioenergy from any biomass is counted as carbon neutral, economics favor large-scale land conversion for bioenergy regardless of the actual net emissions. [Emphasis added.]

It should be noted that this "flaw" in U.S. climate policy is no accident. House Ag committee chair Collin Peterson fought like a pitbull to enshrine it in Waxman-Markey. To the agribusiness lobby Pererson represents, tarnishing the good name of ethanol is tantamount to setting fire to a Bible during Sunday school.

Another article in the same Science issue explores another massive problem with biofuels: water scarcity. As the author puts it: "A widespread shift toward biofuels could pinch water supplies and worsen water pollution. In short, an increased reliance on biofuel trades an oil problem for a water problem." (Emphasis added.)  According to the author, it takes between 90 and 190 liters of water to extract a kilowat-hour worth of oil. To get thhe same amount of energy from corn-based ethanol? Try 2.2 and 8.6 million liters of water. Ouch.

As for meat, get this: two researchers associated with the World Bank claim in a new World Watch piece (PDF) that meat production is responsible for more than half of global greenhouse gas emissions. Previously, the most widely cited estimate came from the FAO, which reckoned meat contributes an already-stunning 18 percent.

So why the difference in assessments? The biggest factor is respiration--the breathing out of C02--by livestock. According to the authors, livestock respiration adds massive carbon to the atmosphere--that factor alone, they claim, is equal to 13 percent of global annual GHG emissions.

I don't have the scientific chops to assess their reasoning. I do wonder if the vast number if the C02 breathed into the air by farm animals isn't partially offset by the vast number of wild animals elimainated by meat production. It's not a pretty thoughtm but think of the habitat swallowed up by corn and soy fields globally--and the billions of animals who now monger exist to breathe out carbon.

However, I agree that meat production is deeply implicated in climate change--and must be cut dramatically. But I find these authors' conclusion stunning: They want to replace industrially raised meat with industrially raised soy. In place of a chicken in every pot, they want to see a "chicken" in every pot. They call on the food industry to dramatically scale up the production of highly processed fake meat--and even offer marketing advice. They declare:

A successful campaign would avoid negative themes and stress positive ones. For instance, recommending that meat not be eaten one day per week suggests deprivation. Instead, the campaign should pitch the theme of eating all week long a line of food products that is tasty, easy to prepare, and includes a "superfood," such as soy, that will enrich their lives.

They also express enthusiasm for "artificial meat cultivated in laboratories from cells originating from livestock, sometimes called 'in vitro' meat."

Sorry, but given ideas like that, I'm not ready to let a couple of World Bank guys dictate the future of cuisine. Getting a carnivorous culture to reduce meat consumption is going to be tricky no matter what. Rather than push folks to embrace soy weenies and test-tube "shmeat," I'd rather see a revival of minimally processed rice and beans, a move toward meat as a side dish, and a return to diversified farming that uses manageable amounts of manure to nourish cropland. Let's ban the CAFO--but not eviscerate what's left of our palates.

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According to Green Inc., lab tests have confirmed that a high ethanol blend was to blame for taking about 70 police cars out of service in Baltimore. At first it was suspected that diesel had contaminated the fuel. Here is a video of the mechanics flushing out the fuel injectors. According to the maintenance supervisor in that video the cars were misfiring and some were running on only two cylinders resulting in low power. If you have ever fantasized about escaping from the police in a high-speed chase, you just missed your chance. I suspect that the ethanol flushed residue out of the gas tank, fuel lines, pumps, etc clogging filters and injectors. This made the news because it was a fleet of police cars. This is proof that there are millions of cars out there ending up in repair shops because of ethanol. Had this been a gas station in the middle of the city serving the general public, hundreds of cars would have ended up in repair shops but because each car would have been in a different shop, nobody would have known about the problem. Many repair shops suspect this is happening but why make a stink about something that is so good for business? Statistically speaking, this has to be happening all over the place. There are likely tens of millions of cars out there that are susceptible to higher ethanol blends. And then there is the slow, methodical degradation of old rubber seals in older cars by constant exposure to 10% ethanol blends. These cars will fail randomly instead of in large numbers all at once. They will not be detectable without a statistical search of repair databases. For the older car I drive, it cost me about a $100 to replace my fuel filter, $400 to replace damaged injectors, and $800 to replace a fuel pump. I have replaced all three in the last two years, plus my gas cap, which had a rubber seal that fell apart in my hands. Low-income people tend to drive older cars, which are the most susceptible to ethanol. As rubber ages it becomes brittle and develops cracks, which can increase the area exposed to ethanol a hundred fold. But politicians are not worried about poor people. They don't vote or line their pockets with contributions.

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Corn-based meat and ethanol: burning the planet to a crisp

Special Series: What's the deal with offsets?Photo illustration by Tom Twigg / GristThe compliance market for offsets proposed under the House's American Clean Energy and Security Act would not just mean more opportunity for companies already in the business of selling carbon offsets. It would also result in a major realignment in the types of offsets offered, shifting away from renewable energy to offsets derived largely from land use, land use change, and forestry projects (otherwise referred to by the clunky acronym LULUCF).

That's because Waxman-Markey, as the House bill is known, excludes all forms of energy production, including renewable sources, from the huge carbon offset program it would create.

"Since fossil fuels used to make electricity are capped, there is an automatic 'credit' from purchasing renewable energy due to the need to hold fewer allowances," said David Hawkins, director of the Natural Resource Defense Council's climate center. "Creating an offset credit for those renewable kilowatt hours would be double counting."

Aside from the carbon price, which would help to level the playing field for clean energy, as Hawkins noted, other mechanisms will also drive renewable energy development, including the renewable electricity standard, which specifies that the United States should get 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources or energy efficiency by 2020; CAFE standards that regulate auto emissions; and already-approved federal stimulus money for research and development.

But the prospect of agricultural and forestry offsets presented an irresistible opportunity for Big Ag, and just days before the House passed Waxman-Markey on June 26, the House Agriculture Committee, led by Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) and supported by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, won some key victories for their constituency that critics argue would impede the country's ability to actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

One of the reasons corn ethanol and, to a lesser extent, soy biodiesel, have fallen out of favor in many circles is because of the international leakage issue. When American farmland is turned over to growing crops for biofuel production, that reduces food availability on the international market, pushing prices higher. People in developing countries can't afford corn and soy at these prices, so they cut down rainforests to increase local supplies. When the resulting loss of carbon sequestration from deforestation is calculated, biofuels typically do not show a net reduction in CO2 emissions over fossil fuels.

Many people in agriculture regard biofuels as an economic godsend that can help save struggling farms (witness the huge boom in biofuel production in the first half of this decade as oil prices reached historic highs). And they have been dismayed by carbon accounting reports that have shown their product to have an about equal warming effect as fossil fuels, information that led California to exclude corn ethanol from its renewable energy fuel standard.

Rep. Collin Peterson used his position as chairman of the House Agriculture Committee to win key concessions for farm interests in the Waxman-Markey climate and energy bill.Courtesy AFLCIO2008 via FlickrPeterson and the House Agriculture Committee won a concession that international leakage won't be calculated as part of American biofuels' carbon footprint for five years, making it appear more desirable on paper. At that point, there will be an evaluation, but the USDA will have veto power over any decision to count leakage.

Environmentalists argue that there is no point to growing biofuels if there is no net climate benefit, and increased water consumption and fertilizer runoff associated with these crops could make them an environmental net negative.

Profit motives seem a clear driver for the leakage exemption. But it is also partly explained by farmer culture, which is generally more alarmed by the issue of energy security than climate change, said Bob Stallman, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation.

Awarding the USDA oversight of offsets, rather than the EPA, was another big win for the Agriculture Committee. Many environmentalists say the EPA would be better at oversight because its mandate is to protect the environment, whereas the USDA's is to look out for agricultural interests.

But Stallman said such criticisms show "a huge lack of understanding about what the overall role of USDA is. Yes, production agriculture is a part of its portfolio, but certainly not its priority."

In addition, the USDA currently runs a variety of conservation programs, he said. "They are required to do oversight. They are required to set up the regulations; they are required to handle compliance. And they have a network of over 2,000 local offices across this country that do that. EPA doesn't begin to have that kind of network."

Specifically, Stallman believes USDA is better equipped to oversee a LULUCF-focused carbon offset program than the EPA because it already staffs soil scientists, plant biologists, and agronomists, the people who will calculate to what degree carbon is being sequestered or not emitted based upon any given practice.

Michael Wara of Stanford Law School, however, said he is afraid that the USDA would follow the lead of voluntary offset markets such as the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) and the U.S. Department of Energy's Voluntary Reporting of Greenhouse Gases program, which don't do on-site monitoring or use third-party verifiers but rather estimate carbon uptake based on soil type, climate zone, and other factors.

Furthermore, deciding what makes a quality offset involves a lot of subjective decisions, Wara said. "Agency discretion is fairly broad, and a number of choices are defensible."

For example, reducing the use of fertilizer would likely qualify as an agricultural offset. Fertilizer is released from soils into the atmosphere in the form of nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas, and the production of synthetic fertilizer is carbon intensive. However, over-fertilization of fields in the United States is already declining as a result of other policies the USDA has implemented and the rising cost of fertilizer. So how do certifiers take into account the likelihood that fertilizer use would have continued to fall, even without an offset program?

"That's going to be a very subjective question," said Wara. "How fast would it have fallen? Would it have leveled off? The USDA faces political pressure from its constituency, which is used to subsidies that are considered to be more like entitlements. So the whole concept that practices change and you might not be entitled to the same level of crediting is not one that's going to be very popular or familiar to farmers."

Stallman said he expects to see offsets' validity reviewed regularly as natural part of the process, negating the need for a periodic, formal review. As an example, he points to no-till farming offsets currently traded on the Chicago Climate Exchange. These offsets are temporary, not permanent. Farmers usually sign a contract for five years, a period during which they agree to implement certain practices. Scientists then calculate a carbon credit for that time frame.

"At the end of five years, there's nothing to say that there would be another contract available just like that," said Stallman. "Maybe the USDA would come in and say, given technological changes and other developments that are occurring, the amount of carbon you're going to reduce by using that practice is a new number."

While he admits that calculating business as usual versus additionality for offsets can be tricky, Stallman expressed faith in the system. "I would support anything that ultimately qualifies as an offset. My assumption is there's not going to be an offset granted unless the additionality requirement is met."

The Offsets Integrity Advisory Board that would be created under Waxman-Markey could be a venue in which to review such issues, according to Daphne Wysham, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, an independent think thank in Washington, D.C. But her optimism is tempered.

"The question is, once you've got all these interest groups in place, how easy is it to make these changes politically?" The USDA overseeing these offsets "is like the fox guarding the henhouse," she said.

--

Below, watch Bob Stallman's testimony before the Senate environment committee on climate legislation and the agriculture sector. (Read a related Grist story.)

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This post was originally published on the website of the Center for Public Integrity and is reposted on Grist with CPI's kind permission.

More than 460 new businesses and interest groups jumped into lobbying Congress on global warming in the weeks before the House neared its historic vote on climate change legislation, a Center for Public Integrity analysis of just-disclosed lobbying records shows.

The surge in the 12 weeks leading up to the June 26 vote meant that about 1,150 different companies and advocacy organizations were promoting their vision of how the nation should tackle climate change, a more than 30 percent cumulative jump over the 880 companies and associations that were storming Capitol Hill on the issue as the year began. Some 190 of the interest groups that were lobbying in the first quarter of the year did not continue their lobbying in the April-June time period.

It’s impossible to say with certainty how much money was spent on lobbying the climate bill, since businesses don’t have to detail expenses for separate issues they are pushing in Congress — like climate, health care, the economic stimulus, or taxes. But so many groups were lobbying climate that even if the issue consumed only 10 percent of their efforts, the cost would have been more than $27 million in just the second quarter-from April through June.

The interests were wide-ranging. It’s no fluke that farm interests took center stage as the vote approached, considering that nearly 20 companies and organizations that produce or promote biofuels — including refiners and would-be refiners of plant matter from corn to wood chips to algae — started lobbying climate legislation for the first time. But they were joined by a host of others. American Superconductor of Devens, Massachusetts, pushed for the electricity grid modernization in the bill — a move that would enhance the market for its superconductor wires, which the company says can carry ten times the power of traditional copper cables and potentially double the power capacity of wind turbines. Electric grid investment also was a primary goal for PickensPlan, the advocacy project of billionaire T. Boone Pickens, which joined the lobbying fray in the second quarter. Pickens had sunk millions into the Texas wind power he touts as an important domestic resource, but electricity from the rural plains isn’t going anywhere without more wires. In fact, Pickens last month postponed his power plan due to financing problems.

Numerous religious groups, from Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America, to the National Advocacy Center of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, have been lobbying on the bill over the past year. In the second quarter, another advocacy group joined in: the Americans United for Separation of Church and State, concerned about possible subsidies to “faith-based” organizations for energy system retrofitting.

T. Boone Pickens. Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/ / CC BY 2.0

About 30 higher education institutions and associations — from Ivy League to community colleges — also joined in lobbying on the climate bill in the final weeks before passage, most with an eye on federal money that might be available for climate-based educational programs or research. The Exploratorium — a San Francisco-based, interactive science museum — along with four other science centers, said in a letter to the climate bill’s authors, “we see few more important issues for our future as a species” than global warming; the organizations wanted to be sure that institutions like science centers and natural history museums also would be eligible to compete for climate education grants.

“The closer we got to finishing the bill, the more intense the frenzy to get little pieces into the bill,” said a senior Congressional staffer. The aide believes the integrity of the legislation held up, nevertheless, even as the measure ballooned from the initial 648-page draft to the 1,428-page mammoth passed by the House. The main goal — reducing the nation’s carbon dioxide emissions 17 percent by 2020 — remained intact, the source said. “It worked out okay, but sometimes at the end of the day you felt like you had been pawed by a lot of people — all your good friends who just wanted to help you out on this piece of legislation.”

Companies and advocacy groups that started lobbying on global warming in the second quarter, according to filings with the Senate Office of Public Records.

Adage LLC
Algenol Biofuels, Inc.
American Sugar Cane League
Aurora Biofuels
Corn Refiners Association
Fulcrum Bioenergy, Inc.
GeoSynFuels
Green Earth Fuels
Growth Energy
Kai Bioenergy
National Biodiesel Board
New Generation Biofuels (Formerly H2Diesel)
Patriot Renewable Fuel
Petroalgae, LLC
Poet LLC
Renewable Biofuels
Novogy
Southern Minnesota Beet Sugar Cooperative
Targeted Growth

What did all these groups get for their lobbying dollars? In the case of agriculture — with nearly 80 total businesses and interests groups lobbying — it’s pretty clear, due to the high-profile showdown forced by House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson, D-Minn., who threatened to deep-six the bill. To gain his votes and those of other committee members, the climate bill’s authors, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and his global warming subcommittee chair, Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., agreed to enhance the benefits farmers would gain for participating in the nation’s effort to cut greenhouse gases. And the legislation gave some protection to the makers of ethanol, the fuel alternative distilled mostly from corn, despite opposition from critics who claim it’s not as green as portrayed.

Agriculture-based alternative fuels were especially well represented among the new lobbying entrees. For instance, there were lobbyists from technology firms claiming they can make fuel from new sources, with at least four separate companies touting the promise of algae (Algenol Biofuels, PetroAlgae, Kai BioEnergy, and Aurora Biofuels). There were also companies like sugar maker Florida Crystals, which operates the largest biomass power plant in North America, and was pushing for greater support of biomass power development.

But the biofuel lobbying powerhouses remained the companies that refine ethanol from corn, especially POET Biorefining of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. In 2007 POET overtook agricultural giant and longtime industry standard-bearer Archer Daniels Midland as the nation’s leading ethanol producer, and its first foray into lobbying on climate was the second quarter of this year.

Former NATO Commander Wesley Clark

Leading the charge for POET was the new interest group it helped create with several other ethanol makers last fall, Growth Energy. Retired four-star general and former NATO commander Wesley Clark is the group’s public face, but there’s also a team of lobbyists behind the scenes. In addition to its chief executive Tom Buis, a long-time fixture in the farm lobby, and former Iowa Republican congressman Jim Nussle as special adviser, the group paid $30,000 to Kountoupes Consulting last quarter. That brought on board former Clinton administration congressional liaison Lisa Kountoupes, who also had been a staffer to Energy and Commerce chairman emeritus John Dingell, and Melissa Shannon, former legislative aide to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Since the House vote, Growth Energy has added even more Washington firepower, hiring Anne Steckel, former aide to Illinois’ Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, the majority whip, and Ted Monoson, former aide to House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio). With what is widely seen as a tough battle coming in the Senate over the climate bill, Growth Energy’s CEO Buis says there is plenty of work ahead, beyond the changes made at the behest of House Agriculture committee chairman Peterson.

“What he did was stand up for all of rural America and say ‘We’re gong to be impacted by this and we want some of these issues addressed,’” said Buis. “Did he get them all addressed to satisfy everyone? I think that obviously Senator [Tom] Harkin [D-Iowa] and the Senate Agriculture Committee are going to be addressing other concerns. Because if you look at the Senate, it’s going to have to address ag issues, because I don’t see how you get to 60 votes without it.”

Even so, it’s still energy interests and heavy energy users that dominate the lobbying scene. Leading the pack were manufacturers, with about 200 companies and advocacy groups, followed by the power companies and utilities, with some 130. Coal and coal utility interests were seen as making out well in the House climate bill, especially regarding provisions requiring the federal government to initially give away carbon emissions “allowances” that likely will eventually be worth billions of dollars. But not all energy interests gained in that deal, which likely will slow the move to low-carbon forms of electricity generation. Enter a new interest group: America’s Natural Gas Alliance, representing more than two dozen producers of natural gas that are independent — that is, not affiliated with a larger oil company. The alliance, which represents about 40 percent of U.S. natural gas production today, argues that they should be fueling a much bigger share of the nation’s electricity production since natural gas is the least carbon-intensive fossil fuel. The coal industry has argued that such fuel-switching could be costly, but ANGA is plying the Senate, the White House, and Obama administration energy and environmental officials with maps showing how new drilling techniques mean the nation can rely more heavily on natural gas without fear of the price spikes that have previously plagued the fuel.

ANGA’s argument is being aided by a team from Wexler & Walker Public Policy Associates, including Joel Malina, a former political aide to New York Democratic Representative Nita Lowey, and Jack Howard, who was on the White House staff of both President Bushes. Howard had also been a senior adviser to GOP House Speakers Dennis Hastert and Newt Gingrich, as well as former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott.

Rod Lowman, who spent 17 years in Washington defending the plastic industry against environmentalist critics as president of the American Plastics Council, is now pushing the benefits of natural gas as president of ANGA. “The principal question we’re getting, quite frankly, is ‘Where have you been?’” says Lowman. “The utilities and the coal industry have been at this for a very long time.” Because “most of the deals had been cut” in the House by the time ANGA started lobbying on May 1, he says the group is focusing its sights on the battle on the other side of the Capitol. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee chair Barbara Boxer, the California Democrat, says that battle will begin September 8. “The Senate will be looking at those emissions allowances, looking at offsets, looking at renewable energy standards — all those things will be revisited — and we want to make sure we are a part of that discussion,” says Lowman. “We will be a part of it.” And so, apparently, will more than 1,100 others.

David Donald, M.B. Pell, Joe Kokenge, Josh Israel, Te-Ping Chen, and Sarabeth Sanders contributed to this article.

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On Monday, the latest entrant in the biofuels sweepstakes takes the wraps off a solar-powered technology designed to transform C02 and sunlight into ethanol.

"We capture the energy of the sun into a solar converter," says Bill Sims, CEO of Cambridge, Mass.-based Joule Biotechnologies. "Inside exists a solution of brackish or gray water, nutrients and highly engineered photosynthetic organisms that directly secrete biofuels. There's no intermediary that has to be introduced or processed."

So far, Joule's "helioculture" technology has only produced ethanol in the lab. But, says Sims, "We're moving the lab outside as we speak. We aren't expecting any surprises." The company, backed by Cambridge venture capital firm Flagship Ventures, plans to begin construction of a pilot production plant in early 2010.

Like Solazyme and other startups that aim to produce biofuels from such things as algae and wood chips, the advantage of Joule's technology over corn ethanol is that it does not displace agricultural land used for food production.

"We wanted to find a way to make new classes of fuels that could be dropped into the existing infrastructure and not limited by arable land or crops," says David Berry, a MIT-trained bioengineer and a Joule co-founder. "Algae is what we would like to think of as a classic feedstock biofuel. We are going directly from the sun to fuel production."

Berry and Sims claim Joule can produce 20,000 gallons of "SolarEthanol" a year for every acre of photobioreactors it builds, all at a cost less than the equivalent of oil priced at $50 a barrel. They say the fuel contains 100 times the energy storage density of conventional batteries, making it a more efficient way of storing and transporting solar energy.

Joule will offer coal-fired power plants and other carbon emitters the opportunity to convert greenhouse gases into gas for transportation. But Sims and Berry said the company's production plants won't necessarily have to be located next to fossil fuel power stations.

"CO2 is available by rail, truck and pipeline, so we don't feel particularly hampered," says Sims, whose previous venture was a LED lighting company.

Joule isn't the only company tapping the sun to produce green fuels.

Stealth startup Sundrop of Pojoaque, N.M., last year signed a deal with solar power plant developer eSolar to use its heliostat field and power tower technology. The company, backed by marquee Silicon Valley VC firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caulfield & Byers, has remained close-mouthed about its plans. Sundrop CEO John Stevens would only tell me at the time that the startup "uses low-cost concentrated solar energy to drive renewable energy into fuels."

Ethanol is just the first product Joule plans to produce. The company has bioengineered other organisms to create 10 chemicals and other fuels in the laboratory, according to Berry and Sims.

"Green chemicals" are expected to be a multi billion-dollar market, and startups like San Diego-based Genomatica have also created bioengineered organisms to produce petroleum-free industrial solvents. Earlier this year Genomatica announced it had made a microbe that ingests sugar and water and secretes methyl ethyl ketone, a solvent used in paint. The company designed the green solvent to be produced at defunct corn ethanol plants.

So far, the dozens of corn-free ethanol startups have produced more press releases than petroleum substitutes in any substantial volume. For their part, Joule executives say they expect to go into commercial production in the second quarter of 2010.

"At that point we'd be ready to drive commercial relationships, partnerships and the like," says Sims.

Read Todd Woody's past Green State columns.

--

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"I've looked at this a lot, and it seems to me that ethanol already helps our carbon footprint and it's only getting more efficient in the way it's produced. Corn ethanol is a step on the way to cellulosic ethanol, which is also going to benefit Minnesota. I'm in the pro-ethanol camp."
-- Sen. (elect) Al Franken, D.-Minn.

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"The President has been very, very clear about this. He wants the biofuel industry to take hold in this country. He wants us to break our addiction to foreign oil. The only way we can do that is by producing our own fuel and the biofuels industry is the way we are going to do that.

"Corn-based ethanol will continue to be part of the solution but by no means the only way to produce ethanol.

"We are working very hard to make sure that we maintain the infrastructure of the ethanol industry in the United States ... There will likely be some companies that will succeed and some companies that won't, but it won't be because we haven't been giving them an opportunity to succeed."

-- USDA Secretary Tom Vlsack, in an interview with Reuters

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Henry Waxman and Ed Markey seem to have mastered the art of the non-concession concession: striking deals with potential opponents in ways that meet their needs while minimizing (though not entirely eliminating) the negative impacts.

Similar to their distribution of allowances, which seemed at first glance to be a massive giveaway but turned out to be far more equitable, the latest compromise between Waxman and House Agriculture chairman Collin Peterson seems to fall into this category. The agreement installs a five year moratorium on calculations for how ethanol and other biofuels affect international land use. Climate pollution is released into the air when American farmers switch their land from growing food to growing fuel, and South American agricultural interests burn the rainforest to clear land to grow additional food to fill the gap.

At first glance, that seems pretty bad, and in some ways, it is. As Environment America’s Anna Aurilio pointed out in E & E (sub required), "No one should be trying to legislate away scientific inquiry.” That’s true – and if there’s a possibility of undoing this concession, we should seize it. But in terms of actual impact on land and greenhouse gas emissions, this concession may be minimal. The 2007 law that mandated a “Renewable Fuels Standard” already exempts 15 billion gallons of ethanol from these land use requirements, and production may not exceed that mark, or exceed it significantly, within the moratorium’s five year time frame – meaning that this provision may have little immediate effect.

However, this concession does essentially punt the question down the road, which means that environmentalists and others concerned about ethanol’s impact (like anyone who pays more for food as a result of ethanol mandates), will have to be very vigilant five years from now to ensure that EPA does actually assess whether ethanol and other biofuels that destroy rainforests should qualify under the Renewable Fuels Standard.

There’s another way in which the legislation may make this concession less damaging than it seemed at first glance. The bill’s tropical forest provisions, which I summarized in this Center for American Progress post and here at Grist, will make deforestation much less financially attractive. By valuing forests for the carbon they store – and by providing incentives for reforestation – they make expansion into pristine areas much less likely. At current carbon prices, a hectare of rainforest could be worth $10,000. Depending on the price of carbon and the price of ethanol, it may make more strict financial sense for land owners, communities, and governments to invest in conservation instead of destroying forest for agricultural land for biofuels or other purposes.

In some cases, that will even be true in the United States where agricultural land values are much higher – farmers may be able to make more from reforestation or restoring their land to native prairie than continuing ethanol production, leading to a welcome conversion of at least marginal land to carbon-sequestering Nature.

The other main concession Waxman made was giving the Department of Agriculture primary jurisdiction over deciding what agricultural activities could qualify as offsets. As Tom Philpott chronicled here at Grist, if USDA continues its long tradition of altering science to meet whatever Big Ag’s financial interest du jour is, that could mean farmers would just get credit for pouring Monsanto’s Round-Up pesticide on genetically engineered crops.

But there’s some hope that USDA would actually apply science. In addition to bringing offsets to scale, we must also ensure that the offsets markets have high standards of environmental integrity to ensure that offsets result in real and measurable greenhouse gas reductions while bolstering efforts to conserve soil, water, and fish and wildlife resources. Tom Philpott added in an email (echoed by this post) to me that while we should view USDA’s promises with skepticism, he’s cautiously hopeful all the public scrutiny of these decisions will at least somewhat improve USDA’s commitment to the environment and science.

“I think the ag lobby will be surprised by the amount of scrutiny on ag offsets,” he said. “They are used to operating in obscurity, and haven't fully adjusted to this new era of public interest. Meaning that people like you and me can play an important role as watchdogs as this thing develops.”

At the end of the day, that’s the conclusion we need to draw. Henry Waxman and Ed Markey’s policy mastery and skillful negotiating diminished the negative environmental impacts of the compromises that are necessary to build a majority behind real action to solve this great global crisis – but we’ll have to remain involved for years to make sure those negative consequences stay diminished.

UPDATE: Ben Geman at E & E has news of how the bill’s biomass and biodiesel provisions have been changed:

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[See update below.]

Surprising no one--but disappointing many--House energy chief Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) has caved in to the demands of the the agribusiness industry over the climate bill.

In reality, he had little choice if he wanted his legislation to get through the House. For more than a month, House Ag Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) -- an unabashed proponent of agribusiness interests--has thundered and roared about how no climate bill could get through the House without containing his agenda.

He had the votes to back up his bluster--26 Democrats on his committee, plus another 20 to 25 rural reps who shared his concerns. Without Peterson's support, Waxman-Markey was a dead letter. There's no guarantee that Peterson can now deliver enough of those rural votes to push the bill through. But with Peterson's support sewn up, the legislation has a reasonable chance of surviving Friday's vote.

"Not all of my House ag people will vote for it, but there will be a good majority," Peterson told The New York Times.  "I think the votes are going to be there."

The question for greens now is, just how bad is this compromise? How much does it undercut the legislation's underlying goal of slashing greenhouse gas emissions and stabilizing the climate?

The compromise has two major planks: 1) the EPA will be forbidden for five years from assessing the indirect land-use effects of ethanol, a topic that sends the ethanol-besotted Peterson into literal fits of rage; and 2) the USDA, not the EPA, will administer the market for ag-related offsets under the bill's cap-and-trade scheme.

The ethanol bit is a travesty, to be sure--no serious person with knowledge of the topic denies that diverting ever-growing amounts of U.S. corn into biofuel inspires farmers in other places, including ecologically precious rainforest regions, to put more land under the plow. But here's the key: As I wrote at the time of their release, the EPA's proposed land-use rules didn't really change much on the ground. The 2007 Energy Act had already grandfathered in 15 billion gallons of corn-based ethanol--and producers only churned out 9 billion gallons in 2008. That means that despite Peterson's fulminations, the EPA's proposed rules would do nothing to impede a stunning 66 percent leap in ethanol production over 2008 levels, indirect land use be damned. So repealing it won't change much on the ground.

So in real-world terms, the compromise hinges on the offset piece. And here, too, we have a travesty--and this one could have real effect. It's impossible to get much of an idea yet of just how bad things are--Waxman has yet to release specific language about ag offsets. But the compromise raises serious questions. The EPA will still have some role in the process; we don't no yet what that role will be. But its authority on judging ag offsets will evidently be secondary to that of the USDA.

[UPDATE: Grist's Kate Sheppard has just spoken to an Energy and Commerce Committee staffer who said that we can expect precise language on the ag compromise to emerge tonight, and that the USDA will "write rules for the domestic [ag] offset program" while the EPA will writes rules for all other offsets, including foreign agricultural offsets.]

No one disputes that the USDA, with its extensive network of offices in rural areas nationwide, should have a role in administering ag offsets. But the idea that the agency should perform the lifecycle analyses needed to determine what really constitutes a carbon offset is ridiculous.

Meredith Niles, coordinator of the Cool Foods campaign for the Center for Food Safety, put it to me like this: "the USDA's mission statement is to promote U.S. agriculture. The EPA's is to protect the environment. It makes no sense for the USDA to run such a critical environmental program." In other words, the USDA has a bit of a conflict of interest here: an agency who's very DNA compels it to promote industrial agriculture is being asked to curb its excesses.

Of course, the USDA already does perform an environmental-protection role--it administers the various conservation programs set forth in the Farm Bill. And here, it's record is spotty at best. In September 2007, the Environmental Working Group released a paper highly critical of the USDA's conservation efforts, sourced largely by critical reports from the Government Accountability Office and other federal agencies. The EWG study concluded that the USDA's efforts to curb soil erosion through conservation programs has largely failed. The authors put it bluntly:

Due to lax standards and implementation problems, the conservation compliance program is missing cost-effective opportunities to make further, substantial reductions in soil erosion on U.S. cropland.

The idea that the USDA has a conflict of interest in administering environmental programs makes me think of its recent performance around swine flu. Despite much compelling evidence that the deadly strain emerged from U.S. factory hog farms, USDA chief Tom Vilsack rushed to the defense of the pork industry. And why not? As currently structurd, his job is to promote U.S. farm interests, not protect public health.

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Drilling for oil in a corn field: will Big Oil squeeze out King Corn?Back in March, Tom Philpott flagged some moves from Shell Oil and Valero Energy (the largest U.S. oil refiner) that indicated Big Oil was falling for biofuels. Now, the NYT shows Tom had it right with a piece detailing the increasing amount of money Big Oil is spreading around to biofuel startups. This comes despite Big Oil's historical hostility to the ethanol industry. In fact, their objections to conventional ethanol might sound strangely familiar:

For decades, the big oil companies and the farm lobby have been fighting about ethanol, with the farmers pushing to produce more of it and the refiners arguing it was a boondoggle that would do little to solve the country’s energy problems.

Oil companies still dislike corn ethanol, dubbing it corrosive and inefficient. Instead, their new investments are in second generation biofuels that use non-food crops, waste wood, and garbage as feedstocks.

If I were the National Corn Growers Association, I think I might start getting nervous. They're already in the fight of their lives with the EPA and Congress over corn ethanol's place in the Renewable Fuel Standard and cap-and-trade legislation. Now they have to deal with Big Oil as a direct competitor. And it's not too much of a stretch to conclude from the article that Big Oil wants nothing more than to put corn ethanol on the ashheap of history -- if only because Big Oil still retains a fondness for grinding its competitors into the dust.

I'm not suggesting, of course, that Big Oil is anyone's savior. And their involvement doesn't guarantee that the technical problems that have limited the development of cellulosic ethanol will be quickly solved or that the issues surrounding land use for growing plants of any kind for fuel can be ignored. That said, the need for liquid fuel will not evaporate when the last drop of oil is pumped from the ground -- and Big Oil's freshly kindled interest in alternatives suggests they see that day coming just like the rest of us.

Meanwhile, industrial corn and soy farmers have been more or less unopposed in the biofuels marketplace. And for all its nods toward second gen fuels, the ethanol industry as its currently consituted has had no meaningful incentive to move aggressively away from corn ethanol. It's no wonder really that House Ag Chair Rep. Collin Peterson likes talking down the potential for cellulosic ethanol -- what he and his friends at the NCGA and Growth Energy have going is too good to mess with. Perhaps Peterson's fury over Waxman/Markey is due to the fact that he can read the writing on the wall as well as anybody -- and with Big Oil getting involved, the end of corn ethanol's reign may come sooner than we think. Frankly, I wouldn't wish Big Oil's competitive ire on anyone. Well, anyone except the NCGA and Collin Peterson, that is.

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What GHG footprint? Peterson, right, with tractor rep. House Ag committee chair Collin Peterson (D.-Minn.) has already made it clear that he's furious that the EPA has proposed a framework for assessing the greenhouse gas footprint of ethanol. Now he's vowing to use his clout to crush the historic Waxman-Markey climate change bill, unless Congress passes a bill that would revoke the EPA's proposed rules. Here is the Saturday Agriculture Online:

Friday, the ag committee chairman, Representative Collin Peterson (D-MN), told Agriculture Online that he will work to defeat any climate change legislation on the floor of the House of Representatives until his "Renewable Fuel Standard Improvement Act," becomes law. And he has let the House leadership know how he feels.

"I've told them I want this passed. I want it signed by the President before I'll support anything else," he said Friday in a telephone interview from St. Cloud, Minnesota.

The man seems quite serious; he has entered vote-counting mode, and is planning to collaborate to shoot down Waxman-Markey with Republicans who oppose it on principle. According to Ag Online, Peterson ...

... thinks he may have enough votes to defeat Waxman's bill when the full House votes on it. Peterson's bill that reins in the EPA has the backing of his committee's top Republican, Representative Frank Lucas of Oklahoma, all 29 Democrats on the committee, and by Monday, probably most of the Republicans. As of Friday his bill had support from a few other House Democrats, with 42 co-sponsors joining Peterson and Lucas in opposing the EPA. House Republicans are expected to vote as a block against the climate bill, anyway. So Peterson said he'll need 37 Democrats to defeat the climate bill.

Forget that the $5 billion+/year federal ethanol program has often been marketed by its legislative champions as a climate-change remedy. Forget that the assumptions behind the EPA's proposed framework are extremely generous to the industry; and forget that the framework won't directly effect corn-based ethanol, which is grandfathered in by the 2007 Energy Act.

As I wrote last week, Peterson appears to be frightened that if the EPA goes on record admitting that corn-based ethanol is an ecological bust, the industry could be penalized by the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade scheme. He also no doubt wonders how long ethanol's champions can maintain $5 billion-plus per year in federal support, if the main environmental agency considers it a net greenhouse gas emitter. As a result, he's essentially mounting a jihad against the EPA's ability to assess and regulate the corn-based fuel.

People who champion corn-based ethanol as a "bridge" to a cellulosic future can take little comfort from the Congressman from Minnesota. Just last year, Peterson wondered aloud whether cellulosic “would ever get off the ground,” and declared it at least 10 years away from viability.

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His Majesty is furiousWhy are farm-state pols howling against recently proposed EPA rules on biofuel and greenhouse gas emissions?

As I reported last week -- echoed by Time's Michael Grunwald -- the agency made extremely generous assumptions regarding the GHG footprint of crop-based fuel. What's more, the proposed rules actually enshrine the titanic biofuel mandates farm-state pols worked into the 2007 Energy Act. Sure, corn-based ethanol and soy-based biodiesel emerge as net GHG emitters under the proposed EPA rules; but those "first-generation" fuels are grandfathered in under the Act. And cellulosic ethanol gets a big thumbs up (even though it remains, as ever, five years away from commercial viability). In other words, the proposed rules have no direct effect on the biofuel industry.

So why don't these guys shut up? Why for example, is Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) trading pointed letters with the EPA and denouncing the agency's use of science? Why did House ag committee chair Collin Peterson (D.-Minn.) just introduce legislation that would prevent the EPA from applying life-cycle GHG analysis to biofuels? Why go to such lengths to reverse rules that don't harm the industry you're trying to protect?

In a remarkable rant delivered at a House committee meeting this week (MP3 here via FarmPolicy blog), Peterson delivered some insight into his rage.

First, he vented a bit. "I've had it," he said with an air of angry resignation. "You [the EPA] are going to kill off the biofuel industry before it gets started." At points, he aired Nixonian suspicions of ethanol critics' motivations: "I don't trust anybody anymore! ... Why are we being picked on? Because some people don't like corn ethanol."

Eventually, he got to the point: "What I'm upset about is not so much what's going on today, but the interaction of this [i.e., the GHG footprint of biofuel] with the climate change bill." He added that discussion of the GHG performance of biofuels should essentially be taboo: "You're putting us in a position to talk about something that we shouldn't be even be talking about."

The chairman went on to declare that because of the proposed EPA rules around biofuel, he officially opposes the Waxman-Markey climate bill. "I will not support any kind of climate change bill, even if you fix this," (i.e., the EPA take on ethanol's GHG footprint). He softened his stance slightly a few seconds later, allowing that he might consider supporting Waxman-Markey if it contained explicit language guaranteeing that the EPA would not meddle in biofuel policy.

Mind you, the Waxman-Markey language under consideration already excludes agriculture's considerable GHG emissions from penalty under any cap-and-trade scheme. The big goal of agribiz lobbying around Waxman-Markey is to take that indulgent treatment once step further: ignore our emissions, but give us credit for sequestering carbon. (No one's ever demonstrated for me precisely how industrial ag sequesters carbon.)

I think the deal is this: Peterson is worried that if a cap-and-trade scheme comes into place, and the EPA is on record calculating that corn ethanol is a net emitter of greenhouse gas, then down the road the industry could be penalized or even shut down. That's why farm-state pols are shrieking like banshees about proposed EPA rules that don't have any immediate effect on the industry they've spent years supporting.

One more thing: This fight is absolutely about keeping the government goodies coming to com ethanol. Just last year, Peterson himself bluntly expressed doubt about whether cellulosic "would ever get off the ground," and declared it at least 10 years away from viability. No one can deny that Peterson is a good soldier for agribiz interests, from whom he soaks up prodigious amounts of campaign cash.

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The ethanol lobby may still be reeling in the subsidies, but it doesn't seem to be having any luck dealing with their other obsession, the so-called "blend wall," i.e. the legally prescribed limit to the amount of ethanol that can be mixed into gasoline. The NYT has a nice summary of the mounting scientific and industry backlash against ethanol lobbyist Growth Energy's EPA petition to raise the blend wall from 10% to 15%. The NYT lays out some of the objections this way:

Approving E15 would have a huge impact on consumers, said Clarence Ditlow, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety, and could cause problems including the voiding of car warranties. “There’s a lot to worry about,” he said. “All a consumer has to do is look at the fuels section of the owner’s manual, which says that the use of fuel above 10 percent ethanol may result in denial of warranty claims.”

Somehow, it's hard to see the EPA ruling to instantaneously void the warranties of hundreds of millions of vehicles. Meanwhile, automakers and equipment manufacturers also seem to think raising the blend wall is a bad idea:

While automakers generally favor wider use of biofuels, Charles Territo, a spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a trade group representing 11 automakers, said Growth Energy had failed to prove that E15 would not damage vehicles engineered to run on a maximum of 10 percent ethanol. More testing is needed, he said.

“We are not asking for this to be delayed forever,” Mr. Territo said. “We are asking for this to be delayed until the testing is complete.”

Mr. Kiser, of the outdoor power equipment group, said some initial tests already indicated that E15 could cause serious problems — including safety issues — with some small engines.

At Honda, which makes a wide range of engines for products from minivans to power generators, the concern is that the effects of a big increase in an additive like ethanol are unknown, said Edward B. Cohen, vice president for government and industry relations at American Honda. “The impact can be on the emissions system, like the catalytic converter,” he said. “It can be on the various tubes or couplings that are part of the fuel system, and it could affect the performance of the vehicle, particularly cold starting.”

The article goes on to detail a wide range of objections (and objectors) to the blend wall petition. Interestingly, however, the article makes no mention of the impact on commodity prices or land use or carbon emissions that a blend wall increase would entail. But no matter. The piece is devastating enough without those additions. And how does the ethanol industry react to this litany of potentially negative effects, both known and unknown, surrounding its demands? If you're Tom Buis, CEO of Growth Energy, you throw a hissy fit:

“You know, some people don’t want to do anything — they just want to test, test, test or study, study, study,” Mr. Buis said. “You know, this nation has been stalling for 30-some years from becoming energy independent.”

That's right. You just have our best interests at heart, don't you, Mr. Buis. If only we realized that we simply can't afford to actually know what we're doing. After all, ignorance of the consequences of using food for fuel has gotten us so far. Why stop now?

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What's that in your gas tank?This is a blog post about the intersection of a bad idea and lots of cash--your cash.

The bad idea is this: growing crops to ferment and distill them into ethanol for internal combustion engines. A few days ago, the EPA revealed that by its calculations, use of corn-based ethanol will actually raise greenhouse gas emissions over the next 30 years compared to gasoline. And then Friday, Science published a paper by Stanford academics claiming that it makes much more sense to burn corn to produce energy for electric cars than it does to convert corn into ethanol. And it's not even close. Get this:

Bioelectricity was the clear winner in the transportation-miles-per-acre comparison, regardless of whether the energy was produced from corn or from switchgrass, a cellulose-based energy crop.

Did you catch that? "[W]hether the energy was produced from corn or from switchgrass..." That means that even cellulosic ethanol, which the industry gas been holding up as a just-around-the-corner panacea for 20 years, looks like a bad idea. The analysis strongly suggests that the government should be pushing the auto industry in the direction of electric cars, not ethanol-guzzling flex fuel ones.

The energy from an acre of switchgrass used to power an electric vehicle would prevent or offset the release of up to 10 tons of CO2 per acre, relative to a similar-sized gasoline-powered car. Across vehicle types and different crops, this offset averages more than 100% larger for the bioelectricity than for the ethanol pathway. Bioelectricity also offers more possibilities for reducing greenhouse gas emissions through measures such as carbon capture and sequestration, which could be implemented at biomass power stations but not individual internal combustion vehicles.

So that's the bad idea. Where's the cash? Check out this report (PDF) from Friends of the Earth. Under the Renewable Fuel Standard, the federal government mandates that 36 billion gallons of biofuel be mixed into liquid fuel supplies by 2022. (Currently, the industry is churning out around 9 billion gallons.) The mandate is backed by lucrative tax credits. As a result, "Subsidies to biofuels between 2008 and 2022 are likely to total a staggering $420 billion." The report adds, chillingly, "If the mandate is expanded, as President Obama proposed during last year's campaign, this number could more than double."

Let me get this straight. In a time of escalating climate chaos and severe budget deficits, we have nearly half a trillion dollars -- and maybe double that amount -- to throw at an idea that's looking increasingly imbecilic?

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In February 2008, a group of researchers led by Tim Searchinger of Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School published a paper (PDF) in Science Express called, "Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions from Land Use Change."

Their conclusion was startling: the government policy of supporting biofuel production, which had begun in the 1970s and accelerated with the Energy Act of 2005, was increasing, not reducing, greenhouse gas emissions. Under President Bush, support for domestic biofuels -- through tax credits, protective tariffs, and escalating consumption mandates, and more -- was really the federal government's only organized effort to combat climate change. And if Searchinger and his colleagues were correct, the biofuel was actively contributing to climate change.

The researchers' argument went like this: If government incentives inspired biofuel makers to divert a billion bushels of corn away from food and feed uses to ethanol plants, that billion bushels of corn would have to be grown somewhere else to keep up with food/deed demand -- say, in what had previously been grasslands in Argentina. And by turning perennial grassland into an annually planted, highly fertilized cornfield, you're generating greenhouse gas emissions -- that could turn out to overwhelm greenhouse gas reductions from replacing petroleum-based gasoline with ethanol.

Not even cellulosic ethanol survived the analysis intact. "Biofuels from switchgrass, if grown on U.S. corn lands, increase emissions by 50%," the authors concluded.

Understandably, the Searchinger analysis dropped like a bomb in biofuel circles. Critics seized on it as proof that the biofuel program was at best a feeble response to the looming threat of climate change; boosters thundered that the assumptions were all wrong. But indirect land-use changes inspired by the ethanol program could no longer be ignored. Another big boost to ethanol mandates came with the 2007 Energy Act, but the law also required the EPA to come up with a total lifecycle analysis of biofuels' impact on greenhouse gas emissions.

Obama's EPA on Tuesday delivered its much-awaited proposal for evaluating the greenhouse gas-reducing performance of biofuels -- which, to the biofuel industry's chagrin, includes indirect land use changes. Well, actually, the agency delivered two options for reckoning with land use and is seeking comment on which one will make it into the final rule, to be issued on November 30.

The first option would "assumes a 30 year time period for assessing future GHG emissions impacts and values equally all emission impacts, regardless of time of emission impact (i.e., 0% discount rate)," the EPA document states. "The second option assesses emissions impacts over a 100 year time period and discounts future emissions at 2% annually."

In the document, the EPA includes a table showing how each kind of biofuel -- from ones that exist in commercial form (corn-based ethanol, soy-based biodiesel) to ones that don't (switchgrass and corn stover-based cellulosic ethanol) -- fares in greenhouse gas terms under each scenario.

Under the 30-year scenario, corn-based ethanol looks like a truly horrible idea. Ethanol made in natural-gas-powered plants result in a 5 percent increase in GHG emission, compared to petroleum-based gasoline. For ethanol from coal-powered plants, the gain would be a jaw-dropping 34 percent.

Things look much rosier under the 100-year scenario, because over time replacing gasoline with ethanol "pays back" the one-time effect of land-use changes. Under this scenario, natural-gas-powered ethanol delivers a 16 percent cut in GHG emissions, while coal-powered ethanol productions results in a relatively modest 13 percent hike in emissions. Significantly, neither would pass the EPA's test that biofuels deliver at least a 20 percent GHG cut to qualify under the Renewable Fuel Standard mandates.

Under both models, cellulosic forms look like big GHG winners -- although they have yet to be made at commercial scale. Soy biodiesel, for its part, adds to GHG by 4 percent under the 30-year horizon, and subtracts 22 percent under the 100-year model.

The EPA will be seeking public comment on which scenario it should use for reckoning GHG performance. Biofuel producers would like to scuttle the land-use tests completely. During a press conference Tuesday (listen to it here), Renewable Fuels Association President Robert Dinneen called indirect land-use considerations far too complicated to get a handle on. He encouraged the EPA to focus on "apples to apples" comparisons between biofuels and gasoline.

I called Tim Searchinger, lead author of the land-use study, to get his perspective on the proposed rules with regard to life-cycle calculations. He made what I consider to be a devastating critique of the 100-year scenario as an analysis tool. He pointed out that scientists are calling for steep cuts in overall greenhouse gas emissions by 2050: anything less courts climate chaos.

He also criticized the 2 percent annual discount for emissions into the model. "Discounting is a concept from economics -- it makes sense to discount, say, revenue streams. But it makes no sense to discount emissions. It's just wrong." He added: "The long horizon and discount rate ignore the true cost of emissions. We're talking about ice caps melting and the methane being released from tundra. Do we really have a hundred years" to wait for GHG cuts?

The 30-year horizon is, at least theoretically, much more reasonable, Searchinger told me. But even here, he adds, the EPA is using "wildly optimistic" assumptions to come up with its GHG projections. For example, he said, the agency neglects to account for the potential conversion of peat land in Southeast Asia -- a tremendous carbon sink -- into palm plantations to offset soy diverted to biodiesel in the U.S. If even 2 percent of peatland gets flattened for that purpose, soy biodiesel's GHG footprint will have expanded dramatically.

Of course, in the case of corn-based ethanol, all of this is academic. The proposed EPA rule would grandfather in as much as 15 billion gallons of "first-generation" biofuels, regardless of GHG performance. Last year, the industry produced 9 billion gallons. Few observers believe that the U.S. corn ethanol industry is capable of churning out more than 15 billion gallons under any circumstances.

"Corn ethanol is a done deal," Searchinger told me. "There's no stopping it." The question going forward, he said, will be the land-use changes caused by other forms of ethanol, ones that do well under the EPA scenarios, like cellulosic and sugarcane.

In related news, the Obama administration rolled out a host of new supports for the ailing ethanol industry, in addition to the $5 billion-$7 billion it already gets in tax breaks and other goodies. From The New York Times:

In the above-linked press conference, the Renewable Fuels Association's Dinneen praised those moves. "The president has sent an incredibly important signal that biofuels are going to be a key component in his strategy to address energy, economic, and environmental challenges," he said.

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[Update: While some may think this decision was a win for corn ethanol, House Ag Committee Chair Collin Peterson clearly does not. In fact, he is seriously ticked off about it. According to CongressDaily, Peterson responded to the indirect land use ruling as follows: 

Ouch.]

The Obama administration came out big time today for biofuels. The White House is establishing a new Biofuels Interagency Working Group chaired by EPA administrator Lisa Jackson, Energy Secretary Stephen Chu and USDA chief Tom Vilsack and charged with a broad mandate to improve and commercialize advanced biofuels. In addition, the White House has released stimulus money to be administered by the Energy Department for research in advanced biofuels and, in a sop to a desperate industry, is directing Vilsack to "begin restructuring existing investments in renewable fuels as needed to preserve industry employment."

At the same time, the EPA announced its proposed rule for a new Renewable Fuel Standard. This is where things start to get hazy. First the bad news: by 2022, up to 15 billion gallons of corn ethanol can be counted toward the RFS's 36 billion gallon biofuel production mandate. We're at 6 9 billion gallons of corn ethanol now and with all the havoc that has wreaked on agriculture worldwide, the concept of almost tripling that amount over the next 20-odd years is terrifying. What may yet save us is the fact that it will likely prove a simply impossible standard to meet.

And the fact that the administration's rationale for expanding the use of biofuels continues to be the, at this point, misplaced desire "to reduce our dependence on foreign oil" is just ludicrous. To wit: Stephen Chu said "Developing the next generation of biofuels is key to our effort to end our dependence on foriegn oil and address the climate crisis." That is, of course, precisely backwards. Addressing climate change WILL reduce our dependence on foreign oil. But simply reducing dependence on foreign oil won't save the planet -- only zeroing out our carbon emissions will do that. So energy policy in this country must be seen through that one, single lens.

There is some potential good news, however, as the EPA also announced that, as suspected, they will join California's Air Resources Board in taking indirect land use into account when calculating a renewable fuel's GHG emissions. And by the rule the EPA has proposed, both corn ethanol and soy biodiesel are unable to meet the new Renewable Fuels Standard. Like CARB, however, the EPA is hedging on its land use calculations and has offered other alternatives as well as opened up its proposal to public comment and "peer review" by experts. See Tom Philpott's post for a detailed exploration of the EPA's proposed land use calculations. It's entirely possible that the ethanol lobby will succeed in watering down the land use calculations such that corn- and soy-based biofuels will qualify for the RFS with no changes in production style or feedstock sourcing.

It's easy to throw up your hands and simply declare that the Obama administration has given in to the ethanol industry. Yet I was actually surprised at how little support for corn ethanol there was in the various announcements and press releases, not to mention the fact that Lisa Jackson herself explicitly observed that corn ethanol right now fails the proposed RFS. And while I'm deeply skeptical of even switchgrass as a feedstock, since anything that grows on marginal agricultural land would grow even better on prime agricultural land, I do think there are cellulosic biofuels that merit research (wood waste, garbage, etc.). Plus, let's not forget that algal biofuels still may prove commercially viable. It's also worth noting the very muted, though certainly positive, response from Tom Buis, CEO of ethanol lobby group Growth Energy. Buis likely noted as I did that the USDA's influence over ethanol policy is significantly diluted by putting Jackson and Chu atop the new biofuels working group along with Vilsack. A boondoggle is harder (though not impossible) to maintain when multiple agencies have to conspire to support it.

A good day for biofuels, yes. But even after today's announcement, corn ethanol's future is as cloudy as ever.

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It's food, no fuel, no food...For the ethanol industry, much depends on distillers grains, the stuff that's left over after corn has been fermeneted and distilled to make alcohol. Corn ethanol's energy balance (net energy produced minus energy consumed in production) is razor thin; it only goes positive when you factor in generous credits for distillers grains. Then there's the harsh economic reality: With corn prices stubbornly high and ethanol prices stubbornly low, not even $5 billion or so a year in government support can keep the industry from bleeding red ink. The industry has been scraping by on revenue generated by selling distillers grains as a livestock feed -- and issuing glowing reports about the wonders of ethanol waste in cow, poultry, and hog rations.

About a month ago, AP reported that the FDA is taking a hard look at just how wonderful distillers grains are, after all. (I posted about it here; and recently found an extended take on the FDA's distillers grains investigations from a National Feed and Grain Association newsletter (PDF) from way back in January). You see, ethanol production is an industrial process whose main product is meant to be burned in car engines. So its "byproducts" are essentially industrial waste, containing all manner of residues not meant to be consumed by living beings. The AP report says that the FDA has found antibiotic residues in distillers grains significantly higher than allowable thresholds. (For two antibiotic residues the agency found in distillers grains, no "safe" levels have even been established). There's nothing surprising about the issue; as I reported last year, the Canadian government has been fretting about industrial residues in ethanol waste destined for livestock feed for a while.

So imagine my bemusement when I came across this, from the Des Moines Register:

Food and beverage manufacturers are looking at distiller's grains for ingredients such as phytosterols, lecithin and carotenoid antioxidants to make products healthier, consultant John Boyd Jr. said.

Come again? The FDA is worried that ethanol waste carries too many residues to be fit for livestock feed, and now the food industry is blithely considering diverting it into people food? Yes, evidently the food marketers want to tart p distillers grains and peddle them as "functional foods." Indeed, a consulatancy called Boyd Company recently conducted a study to identify the best locales for establishing a "functional foods" factory, and geographic "proximity to ethanol production and access to byproducts of this process"  played a large role in their ranking, according to the Website NutraIngredients-USA.com. NutraIngredients continues:

“The massive increase in ethanol production in the US has also resulted in a similar increase in its most valuable residual product: DDG (distiller’s dried grain),” writes Boyd.

“Phytosterols, lecithin, as well as carotenoid antioxidants, such as lycopene, are some of the ingredients that are being researched and expected to be mass produced from DDG for the functional foods and nutritional beverage industry.”

Sounds yummy -- just the thing to spice up a "meal-replacement" bar! As a result of this fixation on distillers grains, the cities that Boyd ranked most attractive for launching a "functional food" factoey tended to be in the Midwest. Here's the top five: 1)Sioux Falls, South Dakota; 2) Saskatoon, Saskatchewan; 3) Salt Lake City/Provo; 4) Winnipeg, Manitoba; and 5) Des Moines, Iowa.

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[UPDATED 4/24] As expected, California's Air Resources Board passed the LCFS with the indirect land use component intact. That's the good news. The bad news is that the actual model to be used in the calculation (including to what extent gasoline will incur an indirect land use penalty) won't be finalized until 2011, a year before the rule actually goes into effect. The badder news is that Reuters reported that CARB's chair, Mary Nichols, sent a to letter for Fmr. Gen. Wesley Clark, CEO of Growth Energy, the main ethanol lobbying group, declaring "that corn ethanol will play an important role in helping California achieve the goals of the [LCFS]." Make of that what you will.

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Corn ethanol (not to mention soy biodiesel) may have reached a turning point. But it is regulators, not legislators, who are in the driver's seat. A series of regulatory rulings, one expected as early as today, may help to determine whether corn ethanol or soy biodiesel will play any meaningful role in our future biofuel mix.

Today, the California Air Resources Board plans to rule on its proposed definition of a Low Carbon Fuel Standard. As the LA Times explains:

The goal of the Low Carbon Fuel Standard is to lower the "carbon intensity" of fuels sold in California 10% by 2020. It does this by using complexformulas to score each type of fuel based on its life-cycle emissions; carbon intensity is calculated by comparing the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by a fuel over its life cycle with the amount of energy it produces. Starting in 2011, companies that sell fuel in California will have to lower the overall carbon intensity of their various fuels at a rate that will increase every year until 2020, or else buy credits from companies that sell cleaner fuels.

At issue for ethanol (and other biofuels) is the inclusion in the LCFS of indirect land use effects in calculating a fuel's total GHG contributions. If the proposed rule is approved, California will utilize a computer model that incorporates the effects on GHG emissions of growing fuel on existing farmland, as well as the effect of deforestation caused by the need to bring additional land under cultivation as fuel crops displace food crops worldwide. Growing food-for-fuel will display a signficant indirect land use effect (while cellulosic ethanol, produced from non-food crops like switchgrass and jatropha, will get a pass).

Corn ethanol is thus unlikely to survive the analysis and qualify for California's LCFS. Corn ethanol would be, for lack of a better word, banned from the Golden State. Amplifying the significance of the ruling is the expectation that a large group of Northeastern states will adopt California's standard. As you might imagine, the ethanol industry (which is still 100% corn-based) is not amused. Apoplectic might be a better description. But when you put aside the fury, their objections boil down to the fact that indirect land use effects are a new field that's hard to model. So there. Most analysts don't expect the CARB to be swayed by such devastating flights of logical prowess.  We'll find out soon enough.

This ruling couldn't come at a worse time for the ethanol industry, already reeling from the economic downturn. Following on the heels of California's upcoming ruling, the EPA will be updating the 2007 Energy Bill's Renewable Fuel Standard sometime this year. And according to this report in AgricultureOnline (via FarmPolicy.com), the EPA will also begin incorporating indirect land use effects in its assesment of ethanol and other biofules. To qualify for the RFS, a fuel must demonstrate a 50% improvement over fossil fuels in terms of its GHG contributions. Once indirect land use effects are included, food-based fuels will no longer make the cut. Of course, the EPA may not have the final word. In an interesting development, AgOnline also reports that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's staff indicated that "it was not the intent of Congress to have soy biodiesel excluded from the RFS." In other words, there's always the possibility of Congressional action to undo any EPA ruling.

In the midst of all this bad news for corn ethanol, the industry is pinning its hopes on its petition to the EPA to increase the so-called "blend wall" -- the maximum amount of ethanol that can be added to gasoline. I've explained at length the saga of the blend wall -- the ethanol industry, USDA chief Tom Vilsack, even Nancy Pelosi have called for an increase. And the now the EPA has agreed to consider it. Despite the apparent "victory" of starting a rulemaking process, I'm skeptical that, in light of all these other developments -- not least of which is the EPA's recent "endangerment" finding regarding carbon dioxide -- the agency is inclined to do the corn ethanol folks any favors. Even so, everyone should be encouraged to submit a comment urging the EPA to maintain the current blend wall given the enormous pressures on land use and food prices the current practice of using food for fuel represents. You can email comments to a-and-r-docket@epa.gov and be sure to put Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2009-0211 in the subject line. The deadline for comments is May 21 with a ruling not expected until late this year.

As an interesting coda, I was gratified to note that President Obama, in his Earth Day speech in corn-drenched Iowa, didn't mention anything about "growing our fuel" (something that has been a staple in his "green" speeches of late). I hope it was a conscious decision. Corn ethanol has powerful backers among industry, Congress and the Executive Branch who may yet find ways to continue this food-for-fuel boondoggle. But it does seem like the science behind corn ethanol's real-world effects may soon have the upper hand.

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The Congressional Budget Office just released a paper looking critically at the relationship between ethanol, food prices and carbon emissions. But it gets better. The CBO blogged about it!Bedtime for corn ethanol?Photo: Big Grey Mare

Most ethanol in the United States is produced from domestically grown corn, and the rapid rise in the fuel's production and usage means that roughly one-quarter of all corn grown in the U.S. (nearly 3 billion bushels) is now used to produce ethanol. The demand for corn for ethanol production has exerted upward pressure on corn prices and on food prices in general. CBO estimates that the increased use of ethanol accounted for about 10 percent to 15 percent of the rise in food prices between April 2007 and April 2008.

In turn, increases in food prices will boost federal spending for mandatory nutrition programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as Food Stamps) and the school lunch program by an estimated $600 million to $900 million in fiscal year 2009. The Special Supplemental Assistance Program for Women, Infants, and Children--better known as WIC--is a discretionary program that provides a specific basket of goods to recipients rather than a set cash benefit, so changes in food prices in 2008 had an immediate impact on costs for the program. Under the assumption that the effects are much the same, increased production of ethanol would have added less than $75 million in fiscal year 2008 to the cost of serving the same number of WIC participants as in 2007.

Last year the use of ethanol reduced gasoline usage in the United States by about 4 percent and greenhouse-gas emissions from the transportation sector by less than 1 percent. The future impact of ethanol on greenhouse-gas emissions is unclear. Research suggests that in the short run, the production, distribution, and consumption of ethanol will create about 20 percent fewer greenhouse gas emissions than the equivalent processes for gasoline. In the long run, if increases in the production of ethanol led to a large amount of forests or grasslands being converted into new cropland, those changes in land use could more than offset any reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions--because forests and grasslands naturally absorb more carbon from the atmosphere than cropland absorbs. In the future, the use of cellulosic ethanol, which is made from wood, grasses, and agricultural plant wastes rather than corn, might reduce greenhouse-gas emissions more substantially, but current technologies for producing cellulosic ethanol are not yet commercially viable.

Apologies for the long quote, but when bureaucrats speak with such venom, it's hard to resist. Okay, maybe it only reads as venomous if you're an ethanol lobbyist or House Ag Chair Rep. Collin Peterson. I especially liked the direct linkage between ethanol's effects on food prices and the increased cost to the government via the school lunch program. And hearing a government agency expressing real concern over land-use issues surrounding ethanol is music to my ears. Even the future value of cellulosic ethanol is questioned. It's all good.

Bonus: Once you start pitting interest groups against each other (i.e. nutrition vs. ethanol), you have a much better chance of finding the political will to attack wasteful programs. This a pretty loud clarion call that the end is nigh for corn ethanol's Congressional free pass.

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