Talk:RSB Principles and Criteria (version 0)

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This page is for comments on the RSB's "Version Zero" of draft "Global principles and criteria for sustainable biofuels production". (Click here for more background.)

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Analysis of Price and Indirect Land Use Effects

I believe that the statements at the top of page 3 about our lack of knowledge regarding biofuel price and indirect land use effects is obsolete and potentially misleading. Many, very credible studies by top economist have recently provided insights regarding price effects of biofuels. While they differ regarding the period analyzed and the magnitude of the price impacts, all of the published studies indicate that biofuel production has substantially raised food prices. Their estimates range from 10 to 70 percent.

Part of the difficulty resulted from the way that the question was posed. Sorting out all of the causes of recent price increases makes the problem unnecessarily complex. A much more useful way to pose the problem is to isolate key variables that are most relevant in determining how food prices are affected by biofuel demands. For example, one recent study estimates that returning the one-fourth of corn production that is currently used as a biofuel to the feed grain market would reduce the world price of corn by 50 percent.

For much of the past century, the U.S. Department of Agriculture supported the world's crop prices by reducing the supply of corn (idling cropland), so we have a long history in this country of using models (such as the FAPRI model) to analyze crop price effects of reducing the supply of corn or other crops. In order to estimate the price effects, these same models had to estimate the effects on production and land use, all over the world. USDA administered farm price support programs using such models.

Your website cites the Searchinger, et. al. study. This study used the FAPRI model. Once again, the study topic was complex because it included a life cycle analysis. The topic was controversial because so many groups had vested interests in biofuel production. However, the model identified land use change effects and showed in a very credible way that these effects can be large. A study that examined the combined effects of biofuel production in the U.S., E.U., Brazil, and Argentina obviously would have found much larger indirect land use effects. Once again, this model has been used routinely for decades to analyze land use and price effects of programs that reduce the supply of agricultural commodities. Those who conduct these analyses have very good credentials.

On page 3, your preamble suggests that our analysis of this issues is in its infancy. In reality, economists have a very long history of using models to analyze in an authoritative way land use and price effects of programs that reduce the supply of agricultural commodities.

• (This comment was made by BioenergyWiki User:Clay)

Biochar

The important topic of optimizing the introduction of biofuels will benefit from including the "biochar" option. "Biochar" refers to the pyrolysis of biomass with the intention of placing the resultant char in soil. Thereby, considerable evidence suggests that one thereby achieves both atmospheric "negative carbon" and greater soil productivity. There are also potential benefical reductions in fertilizer use, nitrous oxide release, etc. The production of biofuels is already well known, using the co-product pyrolysis gases.

The evidence for these benefits was recently summarized in the September 2008 issue of National Geographic (p 100 ff). This article inroduce the main evidence for both the claimed atmospheric and soils benefits - from ancient anthropogenic Amazonian soils known as "terra preta". Experts Jim Hansen and Tim Flannery have endorsed the promise and the need. See also www.biochar-international.org - which will lead to other recent write-ups in Nature, Science and Scientific American.

• This comment added by BioenergyWiki User:Ronallarson.