Biofuels emissions authors say biofuels OK if made from waste, perennials, or abandoned land

February 12, 2008

The University of Minnesota researchers who started a global controversy over biofuels emissions, with an article in Science magazine that has been reprinted and discussed around the globe, said that biofuels would be OK as practiced in….Minnesota.

The researchers said that land conversions would run up a carbon debt mitigated only after 423 years of palm oil production in Indonesia, 167 years of soy production in Brazil, and 167 years of corn production in the USA.

However, they added that ethanol made from perennial prairie plants in Minnesota would incur little or no carbon debt and offer immediate and sustained greenhouse gas emissions. The researchers said that biofuels made from waste biomass, or using abandoned agricultural lands, are appropriate areas for biofuels production.

The 93 percent increase in greenhouse gases from biofuels production, predicted in two articles in Science magazine, has attracted initial responses from biofuels advocates.

Brian Jennings, executive vice-president of the American Coalition for Ethanol, testifying before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on the implementation of the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS), cited concerns about the proposed penalizing of corn-based ethanol for so-called “indirect land use changes” that are calculated against the fuel’s lifecycle emissions analysis.

Some models being developed assume that increased demand for corn in the U.S. is causing previously uncultivated land in developing nations to be cleared for agricultural production. It then calculates the greenhouse gas emissions resulting from land clearing in Brazil and assigns those estimated emissions to the lifecycle emissions analysis of corn-based ethanol in the U.S.

“It is unmistakable,” said Jennings, “decreasing petroleum use and greenhouse gas emissions will require both grain and cellulosic biofuels. Implementation of the new RFS needs to recognize this fact. If the EPA applies arbitrary indirect land use modeling and penalizes grain-based ethanol in the RFS rulemaking, ACE will be forced to oppose the rule change and encourage Congress to help provide a common sense remedy.”