Ethanol. Right. Now.

The direct effects of oil, strikingly depicted on screen and in photographs

In the midst of so much talk of the "indirect effects" attributed to biofuels, there are two new opportunities to view the real impact of petroleum -- on screen and in photographs.

"Crude: The Real Price of Oil" is a film by Joe Berlinger that tells the story of the indigenous people of Educador vs. U.S. oil giant Chevron.  The plaintiffs claim that Texaco (merged with Chevron in 2001) spent three decades contaminating one of the most biodiverse regions on Earth, poisoning the water, air, land, and people.  Please take a few minutes to view the movie trailer here www.crudethemovie.com and then visit www.ethanolcollective.com to share your thoughts on the discussion board.

Renowned photographer Edward Burtynsky is currently displaying his work "Oil" at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.  From 1997 through 2009 he traveled internationally to chronicle the production, distribution, and use of oil.  The photographs are striking and well worth your time to view them online at this site: http://www.corcoran.org/exhibitions/press_burtynsky/.

Brazil's sugarcane industry rep speaks at ACE ethanol conference

Joel Velasco, Chief Representative in North America for Brazil's sugarcane industry association (UNICA), told ACE conference attendees that the U.S. and Brazil agree on 99 percent of things.  "We believe in the power of farmers and agriculture to solve many of these problems," Velasco said. 

Forty-six percent of Brazil's total energy use is considered renewable, he noted, and sugarcane makes up about 16 percent of the country's entire energy matrix.  Thanks to co-generation at the mills from burning the bagasse, sugarcane makes 3 percent of the country's electricity demand - and that may climb to 10 percent in the near future.  They don't have distillers grain to sell, but they have electricity to make, Velasco said.

Half a billion tons of cane were grown last harvest, making 7 billion gallons of ethanol.  This equals 31 billion metric tons of sugar.  Brazil's sugar output for food is up by 20 percent, responding mainly to India's shortfall in sugar production.  Velasco noted that India has shunned biofuels and now is short on sugar for food.

"There is no correlation between deforestation - it exists in Brazil, and it's a tragedy - but it has nothing to do with growing cane in Brazil or growing corn here in the U.S.," Velasco said.

In Brazil, the "gasoline" is actually E25.  Ethanol competes with gasoline and keeps gas prices in check.  "Gasoline in Brazil is now the alternative fuel," he said.

"The flex-fuel car has been very, very successful in Brazil," Velasco said, noting that General Motors does not offer a single car in Brazil that's not flex fuel today.  The Honda Civic can run on pure ethanol and meet all emissions standards in Brazil, the U.S., and in Europe.

Velasco says that Brazil supports the move to E15 in the U.S.  In UNICA's official comments to the U.S. EPA, they noted that throughout all of Brazil's many fuel changes over the years with different blends of ethanol, there were very, very few incidents with engines.  "We believe the technology is all there," he said, noting that if they could do it with 1970s automotive technology, it's probably ok today. 

Experts debate methods for calculating international land use change

At the American Coalition for Ethanol's national conference last week in Milwaukee, experts in the field of studying international land use change debated the different methods behind the calculations.  Wally Tyner, professor and energy economist in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Purdue University, and Tom Darlington, President of Air Improvement Resource (AIR) Inc. addressed the conference's general session on "Theory vs. Science: The Role of Biofuels in Low Carbon Policies and Calculating Direct and Indirect Emissions."

Tyner noted that prior to 2007, the general consensus was that corn ethanol had a 20% reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, but then in the Energy Independence & Security Act of 2007 came the requirement that indirect land use change be considered in estimating total GHG impacts.  He stated that there are a number of issues involved in developing a lifecycle model to quantify these international changes, including how to define the boundaries, deciding what to include and not include, and working with uncertain numbers. "How uncertain are these numbers?  And they are uncertain, believe me," Tyner said.

He also mentioned the E10 blend wall, calling it "the biggest issue" facing the ethanol industry.  "It's a total block to cellulosic ethanol," Tyner said. "Cellulosic ethanol will never appear without getting over the blend wall."

Tyner believes that, based on Purdue's "GTAP" model, the range today for corn ethanol is minus 9 to minus 23 in terms of lower lifecycle emissions than gasoline.

Tom Darlington has studied the international land use change (ILUC) issue and sees what California has done with its low carbon fuels standard as potentially problematic.  Other states are looking to take up the banner on a low carbon fuels standard after California, he noted, saying "I still believe how we do a low carbon fuels standard or RFS2 is a pretty big issue."

"At this point I believe the numbers are not as high as the GTAP model and some of the other models are saying, and I'm not in one camp or the other," Darlington said.  He studied the ILUC issue about a year ago for the Renewable Fuels Association and determined that land use change could indeed be zero.

Darlington believes a higher credit should be given for the ethanol co-product distillers grain, which goes back into the livestock feed market.  He said that other models traditionally believe distillers grain replaces corn on a pound for pound basis, but a new study shows that especially in dairy cattle, swine, and poultry, distillers may replace some soy, too.  One pound of distillers grain replaces nearly 1.3 pounds of corn.  Properly accounting for that soy offset should have a land use change credit, Darlington said. 

When the models are tweaked according to Darlington's recommendations, the outcome is much more favorable for corn ethanol than under the California model, for example.

"Land use modeling is in its infancy," Darlington said.  "Regulations requiring these to be estimated are still far ahead of the models.  We believe there is great risk in making bad decisions, and they may be irreversible."

During the Q&A with the audience, Tyner said he has a couple of issues with Darlington's model, but "we have made tremendous progress in the science.  We're all working to improve all of this stuff."

The California low carbon fuels standard is another question, Tyner said, stating that "it's really tough to create a policy that puts millions of dollars on every percentage point on every different type of fuel."  Measurement becomes absolutely critical, he said, adding that "I don't think we're going to get there," to a point where we can be absolutely certain of each percentage point.

 

U.S. House agreement on climate bill: no international land use charges to biofuels until independent study

U.S. House of Representatives leaders have brokered a deal ensuring that biofuels will not be charged with international indirect land use change emissions until there is widespread scientific agreement.  This new agreement ensures that science, not politics, will determine whether EPA can go forward with the highly controversial theory.

While both U.S. EPA and the California Air Resources Board have tried to impose such penalties on biofuels, ACE has consistently pointed out that these agencies have failed to demonstrate a link between biofuels production and tropical deforestation.  Singling out biofuels for selective enforcement of these "indirect effects" while holding petroleum harmless is scientifically indefensible and bad public policy.

ACE's press statement can be read here.  Executive VP Brian Jennings was interviewed on the national radio program AgriTalk; the program can be downloaded here and then advance to Brian's interview which begins at 11:00 and ends at 15:30.

Rice University study misses some facts on ethanol

A new Rice University study misses some facts on ethanol, and more specifically corn-based ethanol production.  The report ("The Water Footprint of Biofuels: A Drink or Drive Issue?") says that "to meet the mandated increased production of biofuels, increased agricultural activity such as tilling more land and higher agrichemical application is inevitable."  This statement misses a couple of important facts.

First, the Renewable Fuels Standard in the 2007 energy bill was written in such a way to recognize the role of biofuels produced from different sources, and to balance those sources according to their potential size.  The RFS calls for 36 billion gallons of biofuel use by 2022, with corn-based ethanol being capped at 15 billion gallon of that total by 2015.  The balance will come from cellulosic sources.  There is a limit to how much corn can and should be used for ethanol production, and the RFS schedule respects that.  This amount of corn-based ethanol can be made available in a sustainable way, keeping an ample supply of corn for feed and food purposes.

Also, the production of corn has changed dramatically, with farmers achieving higher yields with fewer inupts.  Farmers are growing five times as much corn as they did in the 1930s on 20 percent less land.  Irrigation, soil loss, emissions, and net energy inputs per bushel of corn are all down double-digits in the last 20 years.  The ethanol production process itself has dropped its water consumption per gallon of biofuel by more than 26 percent since 2001.  There are lots of new efficiencies both in farming and in ethanol production that need to be recognized.

And please note: the Rice University study comes via funding from Shell Oil's "Center for Sustainability."

President Obama issues a biofuels directive, starts interagency work group and calls for peer review of GHG data

President Obama today issued a directive to USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack on the subject of biofuels and rural economic development, calling for a new Biofuels Interagency Working Group headed by the Ag and Energy Secretaries and the EPA Administrator.  Having the USDA, DOE, and EPA work together on biofuels issues makes a lot of sense.

In the memorandum, the President had a lot of good things to say about ethanol, including a citation of the 600,000 barrels of biofuels produced each day in the U.S. last year, as well as the jobs and tax revenues that are an important boost to the U.S. economy.  The President instructed USDA to, within 30 days, get Farm Bill programs moving that will help biofuels facilities reduce fossil fuel use and transition to advanced biofuels production.  This immediate assistance will be a positive for America's biofuel producers which have been struggling in today's tough economy as other industries have as well.

The discussion of the Presidential directive came in the same media conference call as the announcement of the proposed rulemaking for the Renewable Fuels Standard, which suggests that indirect greenhouse gas emissions be counted in biofuels' carbon tally.  Though ethanol supporters aren't happy to see that methodology in the proposed RFS rule, there was a ray of hope -- the Presidential directive calls for a peer review of the assumptions surrounding the carbon intensity of biofuels and of fossil fuels. 

Let's put this discussion back into the realm of science where it belongs so that fossil fuels can be subjected to the same scrutiny that biofuels have undergone.  If biofuels' indirect GHG emissions are to be counted, then so should those of fossil fuels.  The bottom line is that future sources of oil -- tar sands, oil shales, etc. -- are going to have serious consequences for the environment while future sources of biofuels are going to be even more environmentally friendly than they are today.

The American Coalition for Ethanol issued a full statement today which can be read here: http://www.ethanol.org/pdf/contentmgmt/ACE_praises_Presidents_biofuels_directive_5_5_09.pdf

Posted by KB, 5/5/09

L.A. Times op-ed gets it right: California low carbon fuel standard favors petroleum over biofuels

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-luft16-2009apr16,0,2388173.story

This op-ed in the Los Angeles Times is worth a read.  Written by Gal Luft, executive director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, the piece gets it exactly right on the proposed Low Carbon Fuel Standard in California - the plan puts biofuels at a competitive disadvantage over petroleum.

The California Air Resources Board could be in a position to deliver a crippling blow to America's effort to gain energy independence, Luft says.  CARB's plan counts both direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions toward biofuels, while counting only the direct emission of petroleum. 

Luft's op-ed says that CARB explains no other significant indirect GHG effects have been identified for petroleum.  What about pumping seawater into the oil wells in Saudi Arabia to increase reservoir pressure?  What about transporting the crude to processing facilities and shipping it across two oceans?  What about the massive military operations to protect oil supplies?

"Ignoring those factors while speculating about the role of deforestation (much of the deforestation around the world has nothing to do with biofuels but with the logging industry) is intellectually dishonest," Luft writes.

New report shows positive GHG emissions profile for ethanol, and quick rate of efficiency improvement

A new, extensive report has been prepared for the International Energy Agency's Bioenergy Task Force on the greenhouse gas emissions profile of today's grain-based ethanol.  The research finds that many analyses on ethanol's lifecycle emissions do not accurately factor in the improvements in both growing the feedstock and processing the feedstock in to ethanol. 

The report analyzed GHG reductions from grain-based ethanol since 1995 and projected them out to 2015, concluding that ethanol's GHG reductions over that time period will grow by 100%.

The report stated:  "The GHG emissions savings from ethanol production and use have more than doubled between 1995 and the projected level in 2015.  This indicates the danger of making policy decisions based on historical data without taking into account learning experiences and the potential gains that can be expected as industries develop."

The research also found that ethanol's energy balance continues to improve as well.

For 2005, grain ethanol’s energy balance ratio was estimated at 1:1.42, meaning every unit of energy used to produce ethanol returned 1.42 units of usable energy to the consumer. By 2015, the energy balance ratio is expected to be 1:1.93, a 55% increase in energy efficiency in just 10 years. Both the GHG performance and energy balance of ethanol will continue to improve, standing in stark contrast to the profile of gasoline and petroleum which will get worse.

The entire report can be downloaded here: http://www.ethanol.org/pdf/contentmgmt/An_Examination_of_the_Potential_for_Improving_Carbon_Energy_Balance_of_Bioethanol.pdf

Two new studies on ethanol efficiency, GHG emissions

Two new studies have been released recently in peer-reviewed scientific journals, shedding more light on the carbon footprint of biofuels.

“Biofuels, Land Use Change, and GHG Emissions: Some Unexplored Variables”, published in Environmental Science and Technology, studied “indirect land use change” and finds that “there are no real data on what actually happens as demand increases for land for biofuel production in one part of the world and potentially leads to land clearing, because it is impossible to track these relationships in the real world.”

“Improvements in Life Cycle Energy Efficiency and Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Corn Ethanol”, published in Journal of Industrial Ecology, finds that the lifecycle GHG emissions of modern corn-based ethanol production are on average 51 percent lower than that of gasoline.

Follow the highlighted links above, or visit the "Ethanol Research" page on www.ethanol.org, found under the "All About Ethanol" menu heading.

Posted by KB, 1/28/09

Senator Thune questions Vilsack on higher blends, land use change

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlbbRtZ_GXQ

Follow this link to a video on YouTube showing U.S. Senator John Thune (R-SD) questioning incoming Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack during a hearing of the Senate Agriculture Committee.  Senator Thune asks key questions relating to higher blends of ethanol, food prices, and land use change metrics.