Climate change

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Bioenergy > Issues > Environmental issues > Climate change

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Information about biofuels and bioenergy and climate change.

Contents 1 Issues 2 Events 3 News 4 Resources

Issues

• Greenhouse gases/Carbon dioxide/Carbon emissions
  • Greenhouse gas balance/net carbon emissions of fuels
  • Life cycle analysis of carbon emissions
• Carbon credits

Events

2009:

• 4-6 February 2009, Washington, D.C., USA: Good Jobs, Green Jobs National Conference. Organized by the Blue Green Alliance and others. (Themes: climate change, green technology)

2008:

• 3-5 June 2008, Rome, Italy: High-Level Conference on World Food Security and the Challenges of Climate Change and Bioenergy - (Themes: food security, climate change). Organized by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). To be preceded by a series of expert meetings and stakeholder consultations; see meetings schedule.

• 26-27 June 2008, Hamburg, Germany: Fuelling the climate: 2nd European Symposium on Technological Developments in Renewable Energy (Themes: biofuels, climate)

• 8-10 September 2008, Newcastle, UK: 2008 Conference of the International Biochar Initiative: Biochar, Sustainability and Security in a Changing Climate (Themes: biochar, sustainability, climate)

• 19-20 November 2008, Washington, DC, USA: Raising Cane: Biofuels, Biodiversity, and Climate Change. (Themes: biodiversity, climate change, sustainability)

• 1-12 December 2008, Poznań, Poland: Meeting of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change & Kyoto Protocol (COP 14). (Themes: climate change, international cooperation)

News

• Wind, Water and Sun Beat Biofuels, Nuclear and Coal for Energy Generation, Study Says, 17 December 2008 by RenewableEnergyWorld.com: Prof. Mark Jacobson of Stanford University "has conducted the first quantitative, scientific evaluation of the proposed, major, energy-related solutions by assessing not only their potential for delivering energy for electricity and vehicles, but also their impacts on global warming, human health, energy security, water supply, space requirements, wildlife, water pollution, reliability and sustainability. His findings indicate that the options that are getting the most attention are between 25 to 1,000 times more polluting than the best available options."
  • The study, entitled "Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security", was published in the journal Energy & Environmental Science.
  • "The raw energy sources that Jacobson found to be the most promising are, in order, wind, concentrated solar (the use of mirrors to heat a fluid), geothermal, tidal, solar photovoltaics (rooftop solar panels), wave and hydroelectric. He recommends against nuclear, coal with carbon capture and sequestration, corn ethanol and cellulosic ethanol".[1]

• U.S. will fail to meet biofuels mandate -EIA, 17 December 2008 by Reuters: "The United States will fall well short of biofuels mandates on the uncertain development of next-generation fuels made from grasses and wood chips, the government's top energy forecasting agency said on Wednesday."
  • "The country, the world's top producer of the main biofuel ethanol, will only blend about 30 billion gallons of fuels like corn-based ethanol and the advanced fuels into gasoline by 2022. That is about 17 percent short of the U.S. mandate of 36 billion gallons by that year, the [Energy Information Agency (EIA)] said in the forecast."
  • "It calls for corn ethanol, but also an increasing amount cellulosic ethanol made from fast-growing grasses and trees, and biodiesel made from non-food sources. Cellulosic is not yet made commercially."
  • "For the moment U.S. ethanol capacity is too high, which is helping to make distilling ethanol barely profitable. U.S. capacity to make ethanol is slightly above the 2009 mandate for blending of 11.1 billion gallons of biofuels into gasoline."[2]

• Wind, Water and Sun Beat Biofuels, Nuclear and Coal for Energy Generation, Study Says, 17 December 2008 by RenewableEnergyWorld.com: A study Prof. Mark Jacobson of Stanford University, entitled "Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security", was published in the journal Energy & Environmental Science.
  • "The raw energy sources that Jacobson found to be the most promising are, in order, wind, concentrated solar (the use of mirrors to heat a fluid), geothermal, tidal, solar photovoltaics (rooftop solar panels), wave and hydroelectric. He recommends against nuclear, coal with carbon capture and sequestration, corn ethanol and cellulosic ethanol, which is made of prairie grass. In fact, he found cellulosic ethanol was worse than corn ethanol because it results in more air pollution, requires more land to produce and causes more damage to wildlife."[3]

• Sustainable biofuels can provide 10% of world's energy 16, December 2008 by Biofuel Review:
  • "In the medium term around 10% of the world’s energy needs could be met by sustainable bioenergy from biogenic residues and energy crops, according to a report from the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU). However, the report, 'Future Bioenergy and Sustainable Land Use', also warns that utilization of this potential should only be pursued if risks to food security as well as to nature conservation and climate change mitigation targets can be excluded. For this to happen, binding sustainability standards need to be introduced at national and international level."
  • "There are some 50 developing countries in which traditional bioenergy, involving the burning of wood, dung or crop residues for cooking and heating, still accounts for more than 90% of energy use. As a result, more than 1.5 million people die each year of indoor air pollution. The more widespread use of improved wood or charcoal stoves or of micro biogas systems, and the production of vegetable oils from oil plants such as jatropha, represent an important and as yet insufficiently exploited lever for tackling poverty." [4]

• Scientist says ancient technique cuts greenhouse gas, 5 December 2008 by Reuters: "An ancient technique of plowing charred plants into the ground to revive soil may also trap greenhouse gases for thousands of years and forestall global warming, scientists said on Friday."
  • "Heating plants such as farm waste or wood in airtight conditions produces a high-carbon substance called biochar, which can store the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide and enhance nutrients in the soil.
  • "'I feel confident that the (carbon storage) time of stable biochar is from high hundreds to a few thousand years,' said Cornell University's Johannes Lehmann, at an event on the sidelines of U.N. climate talks in the Polish city of Poznan."
  • "Lehmann estimated that under ambitious scenarios biochar could store 1 billion tons of carbon annually -- equivalent to more than 10 percent of global carbon emissions, which amounted to 8.5 billion tons in 2007."
  • "The technique rings alarm bells among some environmentalists worried it could spur deforestation, but its chief problem may be that it is barely proven on a commercial scale."[5]

• Biofuel Plantations on Tropical Forestlands Are Bad for the Climate and Biodiversity, Study Finds, 1 December 2008, by Business Wire: A study in the journal Conservation Biology found that converting tropical rainforests to biofuel plantations will significantly increase carbon emissions and threaten biodiversity.
  • "The study reveals that it would take at least 75 years for the carbon emissions saved through the use of biofuels to compensate for the carbon lost through forest conversion. And if the original habitat was carbon-rich peatland, the carbon balance would take more than 600 years. On the other hand, planting biofuels on degraded Imperata grasslands instead of tropical rain forests would lead to a net removal of carbon in 10 years, the authors found." [6]
  • "'It’s a huge contradiction to clear tropical rain forests to grow crops for so-called "environmentally friendly" fuels,' said co-author Faizal Parish of the Global Environment Center, Malaysia. 'This is not only an issue in South East Asia – in Latin America forests are being cleared for soy production which is even less efficient at biofuel production compared to oil palm. Reducing deforestation is a much more effective way for countries to reduce climate change while also meeting their obligations to protect biodiversity.'" [7]
• Climate Geo-engineering with ‘Carbon Negative’ Bioenergy: Climate saviour or climate endgame?, November 2008 by Biofuelwatch: Critical report on "carbon negative" biofuels and biochar released by biofuelwatch.
  • Investigates whether proposed "bio-geoengineering ‘solutions’" such as "large-scale use of biomass as a substitute for fossil fuels, whilst simultaneously drawing down atmospheric CO2 by sequestering some of the carbon in the biomass, either underground or as charcoal to be added to soil" will in fact "help to stabilise climate."
  • The report concludes that such "proposals are almost certain to exacerbate biodiversity loss, ecosystem destruction and significantly increase GHG emissions. As such they will accelerate the rate and scale at which our life support systems, including climate, are collapsing." (Executive Summary (PDF file))

• Algae-based oil would save 160m tonnes CO2, 24 October 2008 by LowCarbonEconomy.com: "Algae-based transportation fuel could reduce global carbon dioxide emissions by over 160 million tonnes, according to the Carbon Trust."
  • "It has set up the Algae Biofuels Challenge, which it will fund with up to £6 million and will also have the backing and funding of the (U.K.) Department of Transport.
  • "According to the Carbon Trust, algae could produce between six and ten times more energy per hectare than conventional biofuel feedstocks, while generating just 20 per cent of the carbon emissions of fossil fuels."[8]

• Biofuels May Hinder Antiglobal-Warming Efforts - Carbon Emissions Could Increase As Land-Use Shifts, 8 February 2008, by the Wall Street Journal: "While the U.S. and others race to expand the use and production of biofuels, two new studies suggest these gasoline alternatives actually will increase carbon-dioxide levels.
  • "A study published in the latest issue of Science finds that corn-based ethanol, a type of biofuel pushed heavily in the U.S., will nearly double the output of greenhouse-gas emissions instead of reducing them by about one-fifth by some estimates. A separate paper in Science concludes that clearing native habitats to grow crops for biofuel generally will lead to more carbon emissions."

• The Science articles prompted many responses, including one by the US renewable energy promotion coalition 25x'25, which read, in part:

"Unfortunately, mainstream media coverage of the studies failed to report that they also identified ways to avoid these problems and insure that future biofuels give us both a new renewable energy source and greatly reduced greenhouse gas emissions. The 25x'25 Alliance and its partners are one in their agreement that environmentally sensitive lands should not be exploited in pursuit of renewable fuels...."

"The current generation of biofuels is leading to a new stage of cellulosic biofuel development that will not only minimize land use changes, but will actually enhance the environment...."

"Biofuels provide a much-needed and environmentally sounder alternative to petroleum fuels....Ethanol and second generation biofuels remain the only fuel options available that address our need to enhance our national security and improve our environment."[9]

• More Bad News for Ethanol, by Energy Roundup (the Wall Street Journal's energy blog): "Another brick in the wall against ethanol. Academics tasked with plotting California’s transition to a low-carbon fuel have delivered more bad news: Ethanol appears to come with a higher greenhouse-gas price tag than previously thought — higher, indeed, than fossil fuel."
  • This article reported on a 12 January report by the University of California at Berkeley’s Transportation Sustainability Research Center for the California Air Resources Board.
  • "'Simply said, ethanol production today using U.S. corn contributes to the conversion of grasslands and rainforest to agriculture, causing very large GHG emissions,” according to Berkeley professors Alex Farrell and Michael O’Hare.
  • “Even if only a small fraction of the emissions calculated in this crude way [through land use change] are added to estimates of direct emissions for corn ethanol, total emissions for corn ethanol are higher than for fossil fuels.”

Resources

• Lifecycle Carbon Footprint of Biofuels - Report of a workshop held in January 2008 by the Farm Foundation and USDA; includes links to papers and presentations.

	Climate change	edit
Carbon/Carbon dioxide (CO2)/Carbon balance: Carbon emissions/Net (carbon) emissions | Carbon footprint | Carbon negative biofuels | Carbon neutrality | Carbon sequestration/Carbon storage | Life-cycle analysis (Models) | Low carbon Policy: Kyoto protocol | Clean Development Mechanism Low Carbon Fuel Standard

	Environment	edit
Climate change - Greenhouse gases | Life-cycle analysis Species: Biodiversity | Invasive species | Orangutans | Soil Genetically Modified Organisms | Pollution | Soil erosion | Forests: Deforestation/Forest degradation RSB Working Group on Environment

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