Searchinger-Wang debate
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Bioenergy > Environment > Controversies/Greenhouse gas emissions > Searchinger-Wang debate
One of the controversies surrounding bioenergy regards the effect that the production and use of biofuels has on the Earth's climate. Life-cycle analysis (LCA), a tool for calculating the overall environmental impact of a product or process, has been used to assess the net effect of biofuels on the emissions of greenhouse gases (such as carbon dioxide, CO2). The validity of including "indirect" impacts of biofuel production, especially indirect land conversion (such as conversion of grasslands to croplands, or forests to plantations) -- and the scale of such impacts -- is central to this "net emissions" debate.
The key participants in this debate included two American researchers, Timothy Searchinger of Princeton University and Michael Wang of Argonne National Laboratory. The contrasting views of these two experts and their discussion, carried out through numerous scientific papers and letters throughout 2008, has been called the "Searchinger-Wang debate".
Resources
- See also:
- Consideration of indirect land-use change by CARB.
- Michael Wang letter to Science (PDF file) (NEEDS EXPLANATION)
- Wang response to land use (PDF file) (NEEDS EXPLANATION)
- Searchinger Response (PDF file) (NEEDS EXPLANATION)
- Searchinger letter re letter to CARB (PDF file) (NEEDS EXPLANATION)
- 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:
- "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."
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