AGROFUELS – THE REAL EMISSIONS COUNT

Stress-Testing Biofuels: How the Game Was Rigged
Michael Grunwald, May 12, 2009 (Time Magazine)

SUMMARY
EPA Lifecycle Analysis of Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Renewable Fuels from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) shows that AGROfuels, specifically corn ethanol and soy biodiesel, produce more life cycle greenhouse gas emissions (GhGs) than petroleum liquid fuel.

In the same testing process, the EPA found that next-generation biofuels (such as cellulosic biofuels) can reduce lifecycle GhGs.

This could once and for all prove the failure of AGROfuels as an agent of climate change reversal but it will not finish off the corn ethanol and soy biodiesel industries. The 2007 energy bill, which created enormous subsidies for the industries and mandated the tests, excluded existing plants from penalties. Also, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack appear to be in agreement with EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson that AGROfuels constitute a “bridge” to future fuels. In addition, the Obama administration is expected to provide support in transitioning Detroit automakers to the manufacture of flex-fuel vehicles capable of running on E-85, a blend of 85% petroleum liquid fuel and AGROfuel.

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The 2007 energy bill called for a corn ethanol production of 15 billion gallons/year by 2022. The corn ethanol industry’s capacity is nearly that now.

The favorable assessment of next-generation (cellulosic) biofuels' life cycle GhGs predicted an oil consumption reduction of 11% in the coming century and a cut of billions of tons of GhGs. If this conclusion stands, it will commit the U.S. to the production of 21 billion gallons/year more biofuels by 2022 under the dictates of the 2007 energy bill.

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COMMENTARY
President Obama’s role in the passage of the 2007 energy bill is an excellent example of the way he does politics. As an Illinois Senator with an important corn-growing constituency, he supported the mandates for AGROfuels – but saw that the law included a life cycle GhG assessment of direct and indirect emissions. The inevitable outcome is that the production of AGROfuels can only go forward in a carbon-constrained world if the political realities are insurmountable. Meanwhile, he has led a movement to prevent the political realities from being so.

The likelihood is that the federal government will allow all the infrastructure developed as a result of the 2007 energy bill to temporarily serve heavy transportation and then slowly expire over the next 2-to-3 decades while the Obama administration sets in motion the process of shifting to battery-powered transportation.

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Those aware of the travesty that corn ethanol and soy biodiesel have been, both in their climate and food markets impacts, approved of the EPA results. Advocates for farmers complained the tests were too demanding and amounted to an attack on corn and soybean farmers. (It they think THAT is an attack, wait 'til they see what climate change does to the farmers.)

Reportedly, the EPA actually used generous parameters in its testing procedures but nevertheless came up with results confirming most other studies on the subject and showing the AGROfuels to be counterproductive to the fight against global climate change.

The idea of growing a renewable source of liquid fuel sounds like a “carbon-neutral” concept. Theoretically, the carbon in the fuel’s raw material comes from the consumption during growth of an equal amount of CO2. AGROfuels, however, generate GhGs from the excessive use of heavy machinery during their planting, harvesting and refining. In addition, the fertilizers they require are manufactured from fossil products, mostly petroleum. Finally, the growing of crops for fuels forces the clearing of raw land for farming.

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The most favorable studies, which do not take into account the indirect effects of using food crops for fuel, suggest that the life-cycle emissions of corn ethanol might be 20% lower than petroleum gasoline and cellulosic ethanol from feedstocks like switchgrass can cut emissions 90%.

But Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions from Land Use Change by Tim Searchinger, a researcher at Princeton, changed the analysis of AGROfuels. It called attention to their effects on land use.

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Searchinger believes the EPA assumptions are extremely optimistic. He also believes the miscalculation could have dire consequences. Searchinger says there are indirect effects from land use. An acre of U.S. land used for fuel instead of food puts another acre, elsewhere, into food production. That extra acre, especially if it is wetland or rainforest, reduces the earth’s ability to store carbon. The net result is lose-lose: More deforestation and higher global food prices.

Corn ethanol advocates want indirect, land use impacts left out of the analysis.

Searchinger reportedly found several ways the EPA’s faulty analysis of AGROfuels’ inaccurately triple their advantage over gasoline and its faulty analysis of cellulosic ethanol gives it 50% better emissions reductions than was found in other studies.

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Searchinger is particularly critical of EPA’s time perspective. In a (reasonable) 30-year time frame, even with overly generous assumptions, soy biodiesel and corn-ethanol plants – fueled by coal or natural gas – produce more emissions than gasoline. If the plants are entirely fueled by clean fuel, corn ethanol produces just fewer emissions than gasoline. The assumption (increased emissions now for reduced emissions 30 years out) is not a very good bargain.

EPA’s hypothetical (and fantastical) 100-year time frame makes corn and soy look better but it is an absurdly long perspective. By 2100, people could be beaming everywhere instead of driving. If the world does not cut emissions 50% by 2050, what people drive in 2100 will be naval.

Perhaps the saddest part of the congressionally mandated EPA analyses is that even if the methods are revised and the conclusions condemn AGROfuels, producers can obtain a waiver and go on making them.

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QUOTES
- Representative Collin Peterson (D-Minn), Chairman, House of Representatives Agriculture Committee: "You're going to kill off the biofuels industry before it even gets started…You are in bed with the oil industry!"
- Tim Searchinger, biofuels researcher, Princeton University: "It takes a lot of land to make a small amount of energy…Academic studies have concluded that if the world gets even 10% of its energy from these new kinds of crops, most tropical forests will probably disappear."
- Michael Grunwald, Time Magazine: “Study after study suggests that growing fuel could be a disaster for the planet, while raising global food prices and promoting global food riots. The amount of grain it takes to fill an SUV with ethanol could feed an adult for a year; we need every acre of farmland to feed the world…Maybe there's nothing EPA officials can do to stop the renewable-fuels steamroller, but it would nice if they suggested slowing it down.”