A new report in Science magazine [reported by Yahoo! News] claims that "using good cropland to expand biofuels will probably exacerbate global warming." The researchers worry that farmers looking to cash in on ethanol will continue to plow up more forests and/or grasslands. Biofuels boosters have cited studies stating corn-based ethanol produces 20 percent less greenhouse gases than gas, while celluosic ethanol results in a 70 percent reduction. The Science study says the analysis was "one-sided;" it didn't include the carbon costs of land use change. Factor in that variable, and corn-based ethanol production would increase greenhouse gases by 93 percent (compared to gasoline over a 30-year period). The Renewable Fuels Association dismissed the researchers' conclusions as simplistic. "Assigning the blame for rainforest deforestation and grassland conversion to agriculture solely on the renewable fuels industry ignores key factors that play a greater role." The ethanol industry cheerleaders didn't speciify those "key factors."
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It’s not hard to see that key factors likely include population growth and soaring demand for resources in developing countries.
Anyways, just because the ethanol push is wrong-headed doesn’t mean that everything the ethanol industry claims is bubcus, or that everything the naysayers claim is gospel.
@i6
That’s my feeling, too. Both sides have an agenda to push, and both will use numbers to support their conclusion while conveniently ignoring any points the other side has.
I agree with both of you guys, but I don’t see the problem with the math in the Science article. They are not blaming all deforestation on bio fuels and then charging the lost carbon against the ethanol acccount are they?
They are using a per acre figure for the carbon over a thirty year period. That is pretty nice of them considering that the rain forest will still take a lot longer to grow back.
Another acre is another acre. If you use the corn you were growing in Kansas for ethanol, and then someone in Brazil takes out an acre for food, there is a relationship. Likely not one for one. However, if a farmer in Brazil takes out an acre of forest to grow ethanol, that is pretty hard to dispute. That is what this article does IMO.
Strangely, this article gives us a good reason to ban ethanol imports. How did the ethanol lobby miss that one? Stupidity?
Ban ethanol imports? Why?
We aren’t there yet, but there is no way the U.S. farmers could, by themselves, support the energy demmands of american drivers if the majority of them were to drive using ethanol.
I don’t see anything wrong with getting the juice from Brazil. And isn’t easier to get ethanol from sugar cane, anyway?
John R,
The problem is that increasing demand for Brazilian juice will cause the Brazilians to put more land into sugar cane, probably taking it out of Amazon forest, which will increase greenhouse emissions, and other ills.
RF: Once again, it’s down to the numbers!
Another nail in the coffin for excessive reliance on ethanol: My car gets about 10% worse mileage on 10% ethanol fuel. In other words, still killing the same number of dinosaurs, plus driving up the cost of beef, soda pop, and most everything else. Some studies have suggested that ethanol fumes from refueling may actually increase formation of ground-level ozone. Maybe we should be concentrating on just reducing miles driven, smaller vehicles, and better public transport.
@red60r:
What makes you think ethanol’s solely or even partly to blame for the rise in cost as opposed to the rise in gas prices?
There is alot of unused farmland in this country that the government pays to keep undeveloped but it is also not tilled.. its just brush land. Now obviously there will be habbitat encrochment but i don’t think that much would be deforested as far as USA is concerned
Frantz:
The report also estimates that scrubland and brushland are important carbon sinks, and that plowing them up also creates a carbon-negative situation. It’s not just plowing up rain forest that the report cites as a problem.
Landcrusher:
The report hardly gives one an excuse to ban ethanol imports. If anything, it cuts the other way. It’s like this: The more we turn grain into ethanol here, the more cropland will be needed, somewhere in the world, to replace that grain. To the extant that we plow up brushland that has been banked, we are causing problems here. To the extent some farmer in Brazil clears rainforest or tropical savanna, you’re creating problems there. The rub is that sugarcane ethanol in Brazil is very land efficient, meaning you should produce all your ethanol there, and all your food in the U.S., and trade the surpluses.
Here is a numerical example to illustrate the point. Suppose it takes ten units of cornland to grow as much ethanol as we need (say, enough to make all fuel E10). That means that ten more units of cornland, in Brazil, will have to be planted to make up the lost food. But instead of doing that, assume that we import all our ethanol from Brazil. Then it only takes five units of Brazilian land to supply our ethanol. Our ten units of cornland then go towards feeding the Brazilians. In the end, five units of Brazilian land are saved.
What makes this work is the fact that sugarcane ethanol is much more land efficient in Brazil, relative to corn ethanol in U.S. Here, I’ve assumed that Brazilian land is 2x more efficient than U.S. land for ethanol, but equal for grain. Those are just rough illustrative figures. You’re right — it’s not exactly one to one for grain land, in reality. But my examples illustrate the relative efficiencies, and they suggest an argument for de-restricting imports.
To be more precise, you’d have to compare the relative environmental impact of plowing up one acre of Brazilian land versus an acre of banked American brushland. If the nubmers are very different, then perhaps we should just grow everything here and leave the rainforest alone. But that’s another discussion.
To tag along from NBK’s explanation of Brazil…
I believe in Brazil that non-diesel cars burn ethanol only about 20% or 30% of the time; they burn gasoline the other 70% to 80%. They have the infrastructure (pumps, transport, and cars) already in place to move that figure to 80% or 90% ethanol. So, they should grow more ethanol and ship the gasoline to the USA. Then the USA won’t need to invest in the infrastructure and instead could ship grains to Brazil.
@CarShark:
Have you been paying attention? Diversion of corn crops to alcohol drives up the price of cattle feed (-> beef) and corn syrup (-> soda). Cellulosic alcohol is a possible eventual fix to some of those problems.
Yes, most cars in Brazil are “flex-fuel” by necessity, as the supply of ethanol falls prior to the next harvest, driving up the price higher than gasoline. The price then falls after the harvest to considerably lower than gasoline, and drivers switch over to it.
NBK,
I think the ethanol lobby would make exactly that point. Digging up the rainforest is BAD, planting another acre of rolling mid west weeded hills is GOOD. The public would likely NOT get the counter arguments about carbon sinks, people in Brazil needing food, etc. As soon as you say someone is killing the rainforest, you win the argument.
These are very interesting arguments. I suspect that one might be able to argue that for other reasons, its’ more important to preserve the rain forest than the midwestern wildlands. There are probably also differences between the two ecosystems in terms of carbon sequestration which could break either way.
red60r:
Yeah, I’ve also been paying attention to this chain reaction.
Trucking companies that carry the food have to pay more for fuel, so they so they raise the price of their service, passing the costs on to the stores, who then raise the price of the goods, passing the costs on to you. It’s that simple.