Indirect land use impacts of biofuels

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Bioenergy > Issues > Greenhouse gas emissions > Indirect land use impacts of biofuels
Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels > RSB Current Debate on Land Use

Contents

News

  • Lawsuit: LCFS violates US Constitution, 4 January 2010 by Todd J. Guerrero in Ethanol Producer Magazine: "In a case that will be closely watched throughout the country, Growth Energy and the Renewable Fuels Association recently filed suit in federal district court alleging that California’s low carbon fuel standard (LCFS) violates the federal Constitution."
    • "Adopted by the California Air Resources Board in 2009, the LCFS is intended to reduce California greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by reducing the carbon intensity of transportation fuels used in California by an average of 10 percent by the year 2020. Carbon intensity is a measure of the direct and indirect GHG emissions associated with each step of a fuel’s full life cycle – the 'well-to-wheels' for fossil fuels and 'seed-to-wheels' for biofuels."
    • "For corn ethanol, indirect land use changes are a significant source of additional GHG emissions....Given the LCFS’ requirement of reduced carbon intensity, it’s not difficult to see that corn ethanol will be severely disadvantaged in California."[2]

State of the discussion on GHG emissions from indirect land use changes

The article published in Science in February 2008 brought the topic of indirect land use changes caused by biofuels to widespread attention. The RSB Steering Board asked the GHG Working Group to address this issue. This page provides resources helping stakeholders to be informed and thus to properly follow the discussion.

Please send us any further relevant resources which could enhance the discussion. Thanks. (tourane.corbiere"at"epfl.ch or georgios.sarantakos"at"epfl.ch)

Background resources on indirect land use changes

  • Letter to Gov Schwarzenegger from biofuel stakeholders to express their concern about the fact that "ARB staff continues to push a regulation that includes an indirect land use change (iLUC)(...) only being enforced against biofuels in the proposed LCFS." [3]
  • Letters to EPA Administrator Johnson:
    • From Bruce Dale and other academics asking him to delay inclusion of indirect land use in the rule for biofuels until better models could be constructed. (October 27, 2008) [4]
    • From the Clean Air Task Force, Environmental Working Group and Friends of the Earth, responding to the Dale letter.(October 31, 2008) [5]
    • From the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), proposing that the EPA reveal its methodology for including indirect land use change so that the proposed rule’s comment period could be used for refining the model before any conclusions are drawn about the impacts of specific biofuels (October 23, 2008) [6]
  • Land Clearing and the Biofuel Carbon Debt, Joseph Fargione, Jason Hill, David Tilman, Stephen Polasky, Peter Hawthorne / Scienceexpress (7 February 2008) (PDF file)
  • Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions from Land Use Change, Timothy Searchinger, Ralph Heimlich, R. A. Houghton, Fengxia Dong, Amani Elobeid, Jacinto Fabiosa, Simla Tokgoz, Dermot Hayes, Tun-Hsiang Yu / Scienceexpress (7 February 2008) [7] (See also the Supporting Materials (PDF file))
  • Response of the New Fuels Alliance to the articles of Science. "More Misleading Biofuels Analysis- Searchinger and Tillman Reports Raise Serious Methodological Questions" (February 12, 2008) [8]
  • Letter to the Editor of Science, Bruce Dale (February 16, 2008) link (PDF file)
  • Letter to the Editor of Science, John Sheehan (February 17, 2008) link (PDF file)
  • Ethanol and Land Use Changes, David Morris / Policy Brief, New Rules Project (February, 2008) Link (PDF file)
  • Better biofuels before more biofuels, Alexander E. Farrell / San Francisco Chronicle (13 February 2008) [9]
  • Response to New Fuels Alliance and DOE Analysts Criticisms of Science Studies of Greenhouse Gases and Biofuels, Timothy D. Searchinger (February 26, 2008) link (PDF file)
  • Indirect Land Use Thoughts by Bruce Dale (March 3, 2008) (PDF file)
  • Letter to the Editor of Science - Response to Searchinger's answer, Michael Wang (March 14, 2008) link (PDF file)
  • E. Gnansounou et al; "Summary of Methodological Approaches to Calculating the Impacts of Indirect Land Use Change"; LASEN-EPFL; March 2008 link (PDF file).
  • DOE Actively Engaged in Investigating the Role of Biofuels in Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Indirect Land Use Change, U.S: Department of Energy (May 26, 2008) (PDF file)
  • Critique of Searchinger (2008) & related papers assessing indirect effects of biofuels on land-use change by ADAS UK Ltd (A study commissioned by AEA Technology as part of the The Gallagher Biofuels Review for Renewable Fuels Agency Department for Transport) (June 12, 2008) (PDF file)
  • The Gallagher Review of the indirect effects of biofuels production, Renewable Fuels Agency (UK), Final Report (July 2008) (PDF file)
  • Addendum to The Gallagher Review, Renewable Fuel Agency (UK), July 2008 (PDF file)
  • Additonal Material to the Gallagher Review is available on the Renewable Fuels Agency (UK) website [10]

Discussion

Consideration of the indirect land-use change issue by the California Air Resources Board

The California Air Resources Board (CARB), as part of its activity to put in place a "Low Carbon Fuel Standard", in 2008 addressed the issue of the indirect impacts of biofuels on greenhouse gas emissions. The views of various experts were communicated in a number of important letters in June and July 2008. These included:

  • 24 June 2008 (Simmons) letter (PDF file) - Letter of 24 June 2008 from experts at Department of Energy (DOE) laboratories and others to the Chair of the California Air Resources Board. Key excerpts:
    • "As researchers and scientists in the field of biomass to biofuel conversion, we are convinced that there simply is not enough hard empirical data to base any sound policy regulation in regards to the indirect impacts of renewable biofuels production."
    • "The traditional tools used by researchers, including Searchinger et al., to determine the direct and indirect impacts of renewable biofuel production are life cycle analysis (LCA) coupled with land-use change (LUC) projections....LCA models can be applied to the same problem but produce significantly different, and often contradictory, results. There remain great uncertainties and challenges in combining LUC and LCA models that make their use highly problematic....Thus it is extremely difficult to make a comparison of the direct and indirect impacts between fossil fuels and renewable biofuels.
    • "Given that our only options for sustainably powering transportation with a significant reduction in transportation related greenhouse gas emissions are biofuels, batteries, and hydrogen, a presumptive policy implementation based on the current understanding of indirect impacts will have a significant chance to hurt real progress on reducing carbon emissions and decreasing our reliance on fossil fuels."
  • 2 July 2008 (Searchinger) letter (PDF file) - Letter of 2 July 2008 from Princeton University Prof. Tim Searchinger to Blake Simmons, Manager of the Energy Systems Department, Sandia National Laboratories (lead author of the 24 June letter). Key excerpts:
    • "I write to correct an important inaccuracy in your recent letter to the California Air Resources Board regarding our publication...Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions from Land Use Change, Science 319:1238-40 (2008).
    • "[I]t is odd that your letter denies the market impacts of biofuels precisely in a year when world crop prices have reached price levels 300% higher for cereals than 2000 and 400% higher for vegetable oil...."
    • "Calculating indirect land use change simply recognizes that the same land used to produce biofuels is already taking up carbon from the atmosphere and would continue to provide carbon benefits in the form of storage or food even if not diverted to producing biofuels....But typical lifecycle analyses ignore the fact that land would already be providing carbon benefits, which are sacrificed when the land is diverted to producing biofuels."
    • "Accounting for the cost of using land to make biofuels as well as the benefit obviously produces a very different result than just counting the benefit. Making biofuels out of waste products avoids these costs. We may also be able to grow new biofuel grasses and trees productively on otherwise unproductive land, resulting in land use benefits that greatly exceed the costs. But your letter does not encourage these alternatives that avoid or minimize land use costs. Instead, it calls for ignoring the cost of using land altogether."
    • "The practical effect of following your advice to count only direct land use effects would be to favor some of the most environmentally harmful biofuels over those that hold promise of true benefits. Biodiesel from palm oil provides a good illustration. It is well known that the drainage of peat lands in Southeast Asia for palm oil plantations triggers enormous soil oxidation and release of carbon dioxide. Palm oil is a valuable and growing vegetable oil, and even absent biofuels, it will continue to grow rapidly....If California counted direct but not indirect land use change, the palm oil industry could sell to California without any change in practice."
    • "Lifecycle analysis of biodiesels from palm, soybeans and rapeseed tend to calculate large greenhouse gas benefits if you ignore land use change. Your advice would therefore have California promote one of the world’s most destructive agricultural practices. That would undercut biofuels that hold promise by avoiding or minimizing impacts from land use change."
  • 3 July 2008 (UC) letter (PDF file) - Letter of 3 July 2008 from researchers from the University of California and other universities to Mary Nichols, Chair of the California Air Resources Board. Key excerpts:
    • "We note with interest the letter dated June 24 from 27 colleagues urging you to implement the Low Carbon Fuel Standard without reference to what they call 'indirect impacts of renewable biofuels production.'"
    • "The authors of the 24 June letter recommend, in simplest terms, that the LCFS be implemented for several years as though the global warming effect of iLUC [indirect Land Use Change] were zero, on grounds that 'great uncertainties' exist about its magnitude and about indirect global warming (GW) effects of fossil fuel use. We disagree with this 'free pass' approach on several scientific, economic, and public policy grounds."
    • "[W]e strongly advise against the path recommended in the July 24 letter. While the science of iLUC impacts is evolving, zero is most certainly not the most likely or scientifically most soundly supported value, and we see no evidence that it will be in the foreseeable future."
    • "It has long been suggested that CO2 emissions released from the conversion of land could dominate the entire lifecycle GHG emissions of biofuels. The evidence that iLUC GW effects are large rests on economic models, including those used to generate the peer-reviewed paper published in January, and widely accepted estimates of the carbon stored in standing biomass in different ecological zones around the world."
    • "So far no models, in particular no peer-reviewed models, have been advanced that come up with values for iLUC that are significantly lower than those in the Searchinger et al paper.
    • "Our past and ongoing work lend strong support to the path CARB is pursuing: developing the life-cycle assessment methods to assess not only the greenhouse gas impacts, but also the wider sustainability of our energy choices."
    • "We know today more than enough to move ahead with a scientifically and socially responsible LCFS. Further work is needed, but this can not be used as an excuse to permit irresponsible ventures to gain a foothold when the science exists today to make more informed choices."

Biochar and carbon-negative land-use systems

Diagram illustrating "carbon negative" bioenergy.

The original draft of this section was contributed by BioenergyWiki user Lorenzo

The articles in Science failed to note the existence of new land use techniques based on carbon soil sequestration, better known as biochar, terra preta or agrichar.

In these systems (see illustration at right), the standing biomass that will be cleared is not burned, but instead turned into biochar via pyrolysis and used to generate energy in the process. The nano-porous char is then stored in the soil to form a stable carbon sink. Char amended soils can sequester hundreds of tonnes of inert C per hectare, and can be built up over time. The carbon has a half life of centuries, possibly millennia (research is still trying to find out the exact range, but the terra preta soils show the time scales involved are large enough for the system to play a role in stabilising the climate.)

This results in highly fertile soils that boost crop yields, reduce fertilizer needs and offset the carbon debt from the first operation onwards. Biochar has been shown to increase Ph, which is highly relevant in the vast acidic soils of the tropics; increases cation exchange capacity; improves water retention capacity; stimulates soil microbial activity; reduces N2O emissions significantly.

In later cycles, more biomass can be grown on these artificial, fertile, high-carbon soils. Yield increases of between 200 and 800 percent have been reported for crops grown on char-amended tropical soils.

More and more biomass can thus be converted via pyrolysis. During the pyrolysis, carbon-negative energy is generated (either as electricity from syngas, or as liquid biofuel obtained from pyrolysis oil or from gas-to-liquids processes).

Overall, the system results in carbon-negative bioenergy. That is: systems that actively remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Negative emissions offset the carbon debt from the start, and after the first cycle, the negative emissions keep accumulating, thus presenting what is probably the most radical tool in reducing emissions. (Renewables like solar, wind or hydropower are all "carbon neutral" at best; biochar based bioenergy and biofuel systems are "carbon-negative".)

The potential for these systems has been estimated: they can reverse climate change if implemented on a global scale in agricultural soils, and if slash-and-burn practises are transformed into slash-and-char.

Resources:

  • Cornell University: Biochar Soil Biogeochemistry. [11]
  • International Biochar Initiative. [12]
  • Biochar at the UNFCCC (Bali) / UNCCD: Biochar.org [13].
  • Lehmann, J.: 2007, 'A handful of carbon', Nature 447, 143-144. [14]
  • Amonette, J, et al. "Terrestrial Carbon Sequestration with Biochar: A Preliminary Assessment of its Global Potential", 2007: American Geophysical Union. [15]
  • Lehmann J 2007 "Bio-energy in the black". Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 5, 381-387. [16]
  • Lehmann J and Rondon M 2006 Bio-char soil management on highly weathered soils in the humid tropics. In Uphoff N (ed.) Biological Approaches to Sustainable Soil Systems. CRC Press, Boca Raton , FL. pp.517-530. [17]
  • Lehmann, J., Gaunt, J. and Rondon, M.: 2006, 'Bio-char sequestration in terrestrial ecosystems – a review', Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change 11, 403-427 [18]

Other interesting resources



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