New paper finds misguided biofuel policies provide no benefit to the climate

Now you tell us...

Time to Rethink Misguided Policies That Promote Biofuels to Protect Climate, Experts Say

Sep. 24, 2013 — Policymakers need to rethink the idea of promoting biofuels to protect the climate because the methods used to justify such policies are inherently flawed, according to a University of Michigan energy researcher.

In a new paper published online in the journal Climatic Change, John DeCicco takes on the widespread but scientifically simplistic perception that biofuels such as ethanol are inherently "carbon neutral," meaning that the heat-trapping carbon dioxide gas emitted when the fuels are burned is fully balanced by the carbon dioxide uptake that occurs as the plants grow.

That view is misguided because the plants used to make biofuels -- including corn, soybeans and sugarcane -- are already pulling carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere through photosynthesis, said DeCicco, a research professor at the U-M Energy Institute and a professor of practice at the School of Natural Resources and Environment.

DeCicco's paper is unique because it methodically deconstructs the life-cycle-analysis approach that forms a basis for current environmental policies promoting biofuels. Instead, he presents a rigorous carbon cycle analysis based on biogeochemical fundamentals to identify conditions under which biofuels might have a climatic benefit. These conditions are much more limited than has been presumed.

"Plants used to make biofuels do not remove any additional carbon dioxide just because they are used to make fuel as opposed to, say, corn flakes," DeCicco said.

DeCicco stressed that research and development are important to create better options for the future. R&D is especially needed for bio-based or other technologies able to efficiently capture and use more carbon dioxide than is already being captured and stored by natural vegetation. But going beyond R&D and into subsidies, mandates and other programs to prop up biofuels is unwarranted, he said.

DeCicco's direct carbon accounting examines carbon sources and sinks (storage sites, such as forests or crop fields) separately, an approach that lends greater clarity about options for addressing carbon dioxide emissions from liquid fuels.

"Biofuels have no benefit at the tailpipe," DeCicco said.

Per unit energy, the carbon dioxide emissions from burning ethanol are just 2 percent lower than those from gasoline. Biodiesel yields carbon dioxide emissions about 1 percent greater than those from petroleum diesel.
"If there is any climate benefit to biofuels, it occurs only if harvesting the source crops causes a greater net removal of carbon dioxide from the air than would otherwise have occurred," DeCicco said.

His paper concludes that for now, it makes more sense to enable plants to soak up carbon dioxide through reforestation and to redouble efforts to protect forests, rather than producing and promoting biofuels.

Corn ethanol production of 14 billion gallons supplied 4.4 percent of total U.S. transportation liquid fuel use in 2011. However, even that small share of liquid fuel supply required 45 percent of the U.S. corn crop.

Biofuels are the presumed replacement for the petroleum-based transportation fuels, gasoline and diesel, that dominate liquid fuel use. In the United States, the federal Renewable Fuel Standard mandates a large increase in biofuels use, which has now reached 16 billion gallons a year, mainly ethanol. But DeCicco pointed out that a recent National Academy of Sciences report concluded that the Renewable Fuel Standard may not reduce greenhouse gas emissions at all, once global impacts are counted.

Journal Reference:
John M. DeCicco. Biofuel’s carbon balance: doubts, certainties and implications. Climatic Change, 2013; DOI:10.1007/s10584-013-0927-9

Prior posts on ethanol

Prior posts on biofuels

Schizophrenic EPA wants more biofuels to cut greenhouse emissions while raising them

Headline today: U.S. Government Mandates 800,000,000 Gallons of Biodiesel by Next Year: 

 "Could cut greenhouse gas emissions by 86 percent"

"Keeping in line with the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) revealed that it will need 800 million gallons of biodiesel in the United States domestic market in 2011.

The EISA "expanded" the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS2), which has volume requirements for Biomass-based Diesel, undifferentiated Advanced Biofuels and Cellulosic Biofuels. Biodiesel is the only commercially accepted U.S.-made Advanced Biofuel that fits the description of an undifferentiated Advanced Biofuel and Biomass-based diesel, and it can cut greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 86 percent when made from animal fats, agricultural oils, and waste greases.

Biofuels & Renewable Energy: Destroying Nature in Order to 'Save' It

Notable & Quotable: On Biofuels and Nature

The renewable energy paradigm requires an unprecedented industrial reengineering of the landscape.

Aug. 27, 2014 6:38 p.m. ET   THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Will Boisvert writing at thebreakthrough.org

On the face of it, bioenergy would seem to embody the ecological vision: an energy source rooted in the soil, attuned to the seasons, and governed by life's cycling rhythms of growth, decay, and reuse. But today, that expression of the ecological vision is destroying nature in order to save it. From the production forests of Germany to the rainforests of Southeast Asia to the American Midwest, we are using millions of square miles of land for crops to feed our cars and power plants that could be used to feed people or become wilderness.
As the scale of the carnage has become evident, a growing number of environmentalists have turned against biofuels. But the change of heart about present generation biofuels hasn't stopped their rapid expansion. Biofuels represent one of the fastest growing wedges of the renewables pie. Germany's heavy investments in solar and wind get most of the attention, but 29 percent of its renewable electricity comes from burning woody biomass in power plants. Throw in liquid biofuel production and wood-fired space heating and biomass provides 38 percent of Germany's non-fossil-fueled energy.

Half of Germany's timber harvest is now burned for fuel, and 17 percent of its arable land is used to grow energy crops for biodiesel, ethanol, and biogas production, a proportion that may rise to one third by 2020. The rest of Europe is also turning to biomass heating and electricity generated in refitted coal plants as an easy way to meet renewable energy mandates, using millions of tons of domestic and imported wood. Energy derived from ethanol in the United States far outstrips the power generated by the wind and solar sectors.

The growing reliance upon biofuels as public commitments to renewables have grown is neither an accident nor a coincidence. The renewable energy paradigm requires an unprecedented industrial reengineering of the landscape: lining every horizon with forty-story wind turbines, paving deserts with concentrating solar mirrors, girdling the coasts with tidal and wave generators, and drilling for geological heat reservoirs; it sees all of nature as an integrated machine for producing energy.

Review finds biofuels do not make sense for the environment nor the economy

A new review by SPPI and CO2 Science:

Aside from rejecting biofuel expansion and use for environmental reasons (see Biofuels (Land and Water Concerns)[1] and Biofuels (Miscellaneous)[2] ), the production and use of biofuels from an economic perspective does not make much sense either. Proponents of biofuels say their increased production will increase the supply of transportation fuels and therefore lead to lower prices. Critics of biofuels point out ethanol often costs more, not less, than gasoline, either because of production costs or supplies that can’t keep pace with government mandates, and therefore leads to higher prices at least in the short run.

For the Full Report in PDF Form, please click here.

[Illustrations, footnotes and references available in PDF version]

Scientific American: Biofuels are a false promise

A feature article titled The False Promise of Biofuels in the August 2011 edition of Scientific American admits, "the breakthroughs needed to replace oil with plant-based fuels are proving difficult to achieve." Furthermore,

• "Despite extensive research, biofuels are still not commercially competitive. The breakthroughs needed, revealed by recent science, may be tougher to realize than previously thought.

• Corn ethanol is widely produced because of subsidies, and it diverts massive tracts of farmland needed for food. Converting the cellulose in cornstalks, grasses and trees into biofuels is proving difficult and expensive. Algae that produce oils have not been grown at scale. And more advanced genetics are needed to successfully engineer synthetic micro­organisms that excrete hydrocarbons.

• Some start-up companies are abandoning biofuels and are instead using the same processes to make higher-margin chemicals for products such as plastics or cosmetics."

Increasing use of biofuels negatively affects human health & ecosystems

A new review from SPPI and CO2 Science:

For the Full Report in PDF Form, please click here.

[Illustrations, footnotes and references available in PDF version]

Excerpts:

Biofuels are fuels made from organic matter. They include liquid fuels such as ethanol, biodiesel, and methanol; gaseous fuels such as methane and carbon monoxide; and solid fuels such as biochar and the more traditional charcoal. Biofuels may have some environmental advantages over gasoline and diesel fuels, but they are more expensive to produce and cannot supply more than a small part of the world's total transportation energy needs. And because they compete with food crops and nature for land, water, and nutrients, expanding the use of biofuels could negatively affect human health and natural ecosystems.

Another land-based concern with biofuels is the inadvertent introduction of invasive species that could negatively impact the natural landscape.

The costs associated with invasive species, even those that are deemed to be beneficial, in most cases, outweigh the benefits that accrue from their use.

No widespread invasive plant species has been controlled through utilization alone in any part of the world.

Industrialized agriculture is one of the most important drivers of environmental degradation worldwide. It has caused large-scale contamination of soil, water and biota, through the extensive use of agro-chemicals, including pesticides and soil amendment products such as fertilizers.

There is increasing concern that micropollution-characterized by low-level, multi-compound exposure-may suffice to elicit critical, potentially hazardous effects on environmental and human health.

The Cellulosic Ethanol Debacle

DECEMBER 13, 2011 WSJ.COM

The Cellulosic Ethanol Debacle

Congress mandated purchase of 250 million gallons in 2011. Actual production: 6.6 million.

'We'll fund additional research in cutting-edge methods of producing ethanol, not just from corn but from wood chips and stalks or switch grass. Our goal is to make this new kind of ethanol practical and competitive within six years."

—George W. Bush, 2006 State of the Union address

Years before the Obama Administration dumped $70 billion into solar and wind energy and battery operated cars, and long before anyone heard of Solyndra, President Bush launched his own version of a green energy revolution. The future he saw was biofuels. In addition to showering billions of dollars on corn ethanol, Mr. Bush assured the nation that by 2012 cars and trucks could be powered by cellulosic fuels from switch grass and other plant life.

To launch this wonder-fuel industry, the feds under Mr. Bush and President Obama have pumped at least $1.5 billion of grants and loan subsidies to fledgling producers. Mr. Bush signed an energy bill in 2007 that established a tax credit of $1.01 per gallon produced.

Most important, the Nancy Pelosi Congress passed and Mr. Bush signed a law imposing mandates on oil companies to blend cellulosic fuel into conventional gasoline. This guaranteed producers a market. In 2010 the mandate was 100 million barrels, rising to 250 million in 2011 and 500 million in 2012. By the end of this decade the requirements leap to 10.5 billion gallons a year.

When these mandates were established, no companies produced commercially viable cellulosic fuel. But the dream was: If you mandate and subsidize it, someone will build it.

Guess what? Nobody has. Despite the taxpayer enticements, this year cellulosic fuel production won't be 250 million or even 25 million gallons. Last year the Environmental Protection Agency, which has the authority to revise the mandates, quietly reduced the 2011 requirement by 243.4 million gallons to a mere 6.6 million. Some critics suggest that even much of that 6.6 million isn't true cellulosic fuel.

The EPA has already announced that the 2012 mandate of 500 million gallons is unattainable, so it is again expected to lower the mandate to fewer than 12 million gallons for next year.

One reason the mandates can't be met is the half-dozen or so companies that received the first round of subsidies to produce cellulosic fuel never got off the ground. Some 70 million gallons, or 70% of the cellulosic supply to meet the 2010 mandate, was supposed to come from Alabama-based Cello Energy. Incredibly, those projections were made before Cello had built its plant to produce the fuel and before the technology was proven to work.

In 2009 a jury in a civil fraud case ruled that Cello had lied about how much cellulosic fuel it could produce. Some of the fuel that Cello showed to investors was derived from petroleum, not plants. The firm produced little biofuel and in October 2010 it declared bankruptcy.

It gets worse. Because there was no cellulosic fuel available, oil companies have had to purchase "waiver credits"—for failing to comply with a mandate to buy a product that doesn't exist. In 2010 and this year, the EPA has forced oil companies to pay about $10 million for these credits. Since these costs are eventually passed on to consumers, the biofuels mandate is an invisible tax paid at the gas pump.

And for what? An October 2011 report on biofuels by the National Academy of Sciences concluded that the mandates "may be an ineffective way to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions." Because production is so low, advanced cellulosic fuels also do very little to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil. The report notes that "currently, no commercially viable biorefineries exist for converting cellulosic biomass to fuel."

Why? Because of what the National Academy report calls "the high cost of producing cellulosic biofuels compared with petroleum-based fuels, and uncertainties in future biofuel markets." The report does say that technological breakthroughs could make cellulosic fuels cost-competitive in the future, but that same leap of faith has driven subsidies to alternative energy for 40 years.

Still, the subsidies roll on. In August 2011 the Obama Administration funded a $510 million program in partnership with the Navy to produce advanced biofuels for the military. In September the feds loaned $134 million to Abengoa Bioenergy to build a cellulosic plant in Kansas. The optimistic forecast is that this plant will produce about 23 million barrels a year—a fraction of what Washington promised in 2006. In September the Department of Energy provided POET, which advertises itself as the "world's largest ethanol producer," a $105 million loan guarantee for cellulosic.

To recap: Congress subsidized a product that didn't exist, mandated its purchase though it still didn't exist, is punishing oil companies for not buying the product that doesn't exist, and is now doubling down on the subsidies in the hope that someday it might exist. We'd call this the march of folly, but that's unfair to fools.

Biofuels & wind power squander land & other resources

Small Is Beautiful—So Go Nuclear
As environmentally friendly as they sound, biofuels and wind power squander land and other resources. 

By ROBERT BRYCE     WSJ.com 1/19/12

Nearly four decades ago, British economist E.F. Schumacher stated the essence of environmental protection in three words: Small is beautiful. As Schumacher argued in his famous book by that title, man-made disturbances of the natural world—farms, for example, and power plants—should have the smallest possible footprints. But how can that ideal be realized in a world that must produce more and more food and energy for its growing population?

The answer, in just one word, is density. Over the course of the last century, human beings have found ways to concentrate crops and energy production within smaller and smaller areas, conserving land while meeting the ever-growing global demand for calories and watts. But this approach runs counter to the entrenched beliefs of many environmental activists and politicians, whose "organic" and "renewable" policies, as nature-friendly as they sound, squander land and other resources. Food cultivation exemplifies the virtues of density. During the second half of the 20th century, hybrid seeds and synthetic fertilizers, along with better methods of planting and harvesting, produced stunning increases in agricultural productivity. Between the mid-1960s and mid-2000s, global production of all cereal crops doubled, according to U.N. data, even though the amount of cultivated acreage remained about the same. Indur Goklany, a policy analyst for the U.S. Department of the Interior, estimates that if agriculture had remained at its early 1960s level of productivity, feeding the world's population in 1998 would have required nearly eight billion acres of farmland, instead of the 3.7 billion acres that were actually under cultivation. Where in the world—literally—would we have found an extra 4.3 billion acres, an area slightly smaller than South America?

Meanwhile, a recent analysis of U.S. Department of Agriculture data, by plant pathologist Steve Savage, found that land devoted to organic farming produces about 29% less corn and 38% less winter wheat than the same acreage conventionally farmed. Since world population is growing and food prices are already at near-record highs, mandates for organic farming could be disastrous. For example, low-density agriculture could increase deforestation as farmers desperately seek more farmland—a result that should disturb environmentalists.

Now consider biofuels, which are supposed to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions. The domestic biofuel craze began in 1976, when Amory Lovins, co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute and a darling of the greens, declared that "developments in the conversion of agricultural, forestry and urban wastes to methanol and other liquid and gaseous fuels now offer practical, economically interesting technologies sufficient to run an efficient U.S. transport sector." Today, Mr. Lovins still promotes this mirage—and unfortunately so do many others, including Secretary of Energy Steven Chu. But a bit of elementary math shows that large-scale biofuels production is a fool's errand. Assume you wanted to replace one-tenth of U.S. oil consumption with fuel derived from switch grass, a plant often mentioned during discussions of cellulosic ethanol. That would require cultivating some 37 million acres of land—an area roughly the size of Illinois—in nothing but switch grass.

The problem with biofuels is low power density, a term that refers to the amount of energy flow that can be harnessed from a given area, volume or mass. The power density of plants such as corn or switch grass is fractions of a watt per square meter. Some energy analysts estimate the power density of corn ethanol to be as low as 0.05 watts per square meter of farmland. By comparison, a relatively small natural-gas well that produces just 60,000 cubic feet of gas per day has a power density of 28 watts per square meter. Wind turbines have a power density of about one watt per square meter. Compare that with the two nuclear reactors at Indian Point, which provide as much as 30% of New York City's electricity. Even if you include the entire footprint of the Indian Point project—about 250 acres—the site's power density exceeds 2,000 watts per square meter. To generate as much electricity as Indian Point does, you'd need to cover about 770 square miles of land with wind turbines, an area slightly smaller than Rhode Island.

The virtues of density can also be seen in nuclear waste, a leading bugaboo of groups like Greenpeace and the Sierra Club. According to the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry group, the American commercial nuclear-power industry, over its entire history, has produced about 62,000 tons of high-level waste. Stacked to a depth of about 20 feet, that would cover a single football field. Coal-fired power plants in the United States, by contrast, generate about 130 million tons of coal ash in a single year. True, radioactive waste is toxic and long-lived, but it can be stored safely. France produces about 80% of its electricity from nuclear fission, and all of its high-level waste is stored in a single building about the size of a soccer field. The greenness of density leads to two conclusions. First, those who make environmental policy should consider density a desirable goal in nearly all the issues that they confront. And second, the real environmentalists aren't the headline-seeking advocacy groups. They're the farmers, urban planners, agronomists—and yes, even natural-gas drillers and nuclear engineers.

Mr. Bryce is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. This article is adapted from the Winter 2012 issue of City Journal.

Even the U.N. Hates Ethanol

Review & Outlook WSJ.com 6/14/11

Another reason to end taxpayer subsidies for biofuels

Oklahoma Republican Tom Coburn believes he'll have 60 Senate votes Tuesday to end the 45-cent blender tax credit for ethanol, as well as the 54-cent tariff on imported ethanol. For Senators still on the fence, a new study suggests that the world's poor would benefit even more than U.S. taxpayers if governments stopped subsidizing the transformation of food into fuel.

The new study, requested by G-20 leaders last November, fingers biofuel subsidies as among the leading causes of agricultural price shocks. According to the report, "between 2000 and 2009, global output of bio-ethanol quadrupled and production of biodiesel increased tenfold," a spike which "has been largely driven by government support policies." The report cites forecasts suggesting that the price of coarse grains could increase as much as 13%, oilseeds by 7% and vegetable oil 35% on average each year between 2013 and 2017.

As farmers respond to artificially high prices for biofuels, farmland is diverted from crops like wheat that people consume to the feedstocks for inefficient energy production. Biofuel production now absorbs 20% of the world's sugar cane, 9% of oilseeds and coarse grains, and 4% of sugar beets—and, we'd add, more than 40% of U.S. corn production.

As food prices rise, both the quantity and the quality of food available to consumers in the developing world have decreased, says the study. The report's recommendation is clear: G-20 governments should "remove provisions of current national policies that subsidize (or mandate) biofuels production or consumption."

These economic points are familiar to readers of these columns, but what is more noteworthy is the source. The report was prepared by 10 international organizations, including the World Bank and five different arms of the U.N., such as the Food and Agriculture Organization and the International Fund for Agricultural Development. These are people who not only don't object to taxpayer subsidies of unproductive activity—their livelihoods depend on them. Yet they are unanimous in calling for an end to biofuel subsidies. Any policy opposed by both the Club for Growth and the U.N. must belong in the government boondoggle hall of fame.

Not that this will stop the biofuels lobby from fighting Mr. Coburn's modest amendment, which would save taxpayers about $6 billion a year. Growth Energy, the ethanol lobby run by retired General Wesley Clark, cites OPEC's recent decision not to increase oil production as a reason to continue propping up the ethanol industry. A press release argues that the Coburn amendment "would permit hostile countries to exert influence over our economy by blocking American motorists from choosing the only viable alternative to foreign oil: domestic ethanol."

You've got to love that "viable" bit, given that ethanol only exists because of subsidies and an annual production mandate that will be 36 billion gallons by 2022. In anticipation of losing to Mr. Coburn on tariffs and tax credits, the lobby is already pushing to expand subsidies for blender pumps and pipelines that could use fuel with an ethanol content higher than 10%. Oh, and oil imports have increased even as ethanol use has risen. The energy independence line is a long-time ethanol lobby canard.

We hope Mr. Coburn succeeds on the Senate floor, for the sake of American taxpayers, the U.S. economy, and the world's poor.

Of Mustard Fuel and Marines

How do you hide from the enemy if your camp runs on a giant windmill?

By ROBERT JAMES   WSJ.com 8/2/11

Although few realize it, the military is just as susceptible to fads and political correctness as any other government agency. Thus, in response to prodding from the executive branch, both the Air Force and Navy have announced plans to get half their fuel from "renewable resources" by 2020.

"We have already tested the F-18 Hornet on biofuels, the Green Hornet," Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus explained in a speech last year. "The biofuel it used was made from camelina, a member of the mustard family. . . . [T]he Marines, who are not known as leaders of the environmental movement, have embraced this wholeheartedly."

There are good reasons to consider powering forward bases and combat vehicles with something other than gasoline. Studies have shown that while the army can purchase gasoline for $1 a gallon, it costs $400 to deliver that gallon to the front in Afghanistan. In Iraq and Afghanistan, one soldier or civilian was killed for every 24 fuel convoys. But are biofuels the answer?

The military's flirtation with green energy began a decade ago when the Department of Defense started taking advice from environmental guru Amory Lovins. In his 1976 book, "Soft Energy Path," Mr. Lovins proposed getting one-third of our fuel oil from domestic crops. We could do this, he said, by building a distillery complex only 10 times the size of the combined beer and wine industries' complexes.

In 2004, the Defense Department paid Mr. Lovins and his Rocky Mountain Institute to write "Winning the Oil Endgame," a 300-page, four-color coffee-table book in which they proposed running the entire electrical grid on wind and sunshine, and using the backed-out natural gas and biofuels to power our transport sector.

Through all this work, however, Mr. Lovins has never bothered to calculate how much land would be needed to grow these crops. Using the figures he proposed with the grape and hops industries, it's easy to estimate.

We would need an area three times the size of the continental United States to replace one-third of our oil requirements. These figures are confirmed in that we now employ one-third of the corn harvest—our biggest crop— to replace only 3% of our oil consumption. In "Winning the Oil Endgame," by the way, Mr. Lovins predicated his scenario on inventing cars that get 125 miles to the gallon.

The armed services are charging ahead anyway, hoping to stay abreast of the latest style. Last October, the New York Times described a Marine company arriving in Afghanistan's Helmand Province with all the latest green paraphernalia: portable solar panels, compact florescent light bulbs, solar tent shields that provide shade and electricity, and solar chargers for computers and communications equipment.

"[S]enior commanders have come to see overdependence on fossil fuel as a big liability," wrote reporter Elisabeth Rosenthal, "and renewable technologies—which have become more reliable and less expensive over the past few years—as providing a potential answer. . . . The Marines are exploring . . . a small-scale, truck-based biofuel plant that could transform local crops, like illegal poppies, into fuel."

But how many acres of poppies would be required? Lester Brown, the renowned environmentalist who has turned against biofuels, offers a vivid estimate. "The grain required to fill a 25-gallon SUV gas tank with ethanol will feed one person for a year," he notes.

Any other form of renewable energy on the battlefield will face the same inherent limitation: the amount of land and space required to gather these very dilute energy streams. You may be able to recharge a laptop or heat a tent with a fold-up solar panel. But anything bigger would require a full-fledged array of gear that would easily be picked up by enemy radar. And what better way to give away your position than by erecting a three-story windmill?

As the Rand Corporation recently reported to the office of the Secretary of Defense, "[T]he use of alternative fuels offers the armed services no direct military benefit. . . ." and "the military is best served by efforts directed at using energy more efficiently in weapons systems and at military installations."

Force protection should be the supreme goal of military strategy. We should do everything we can to limit the exposure created by moving fuel through combat zones. But let's get real about the solutions. The job of the military is defending the nation.

Mr. James is a retired rear admiral and a former branch chief for the Central Intelligence Agency.

New paper says biofuels will cause high food price inflation, but don't worry, you'll eat less as a result

A paper published today in Global Environmental Change finds biofuel production will cause a significant increase in future food prices, especially in the US. The authors predict that high food price inflation due to producing biofuels in the US will lead to fewer calories consumed [aka more people starving], but says nonetheless CO2 "emissions per calorie [will increase] slightly in all three countries [US, China, Brazil]." This begs the question, why do we burn our food?

Prior posts on biofuels

The impact of biofuel-induced food-price inflation on dietary energy demand and dietary greenhouse gas emissions

• Noah Scovronick^, , 
• Paul Wilkinson 

• London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Department of Social and Environmental Health Research, 15-17 Tavistock Place, London, WC1H 9SH, United Kingdom

Highlights

•

Biofuel production is predicted to increase future food prices.

•

We estimated associated changes to dietary energy demand and dietary GHG emissions.

•

[Dietary] Energy demand decreased in all three countries (Brazil, China and the USA).

•

But diets became more GHG intense per unit food and energy demanded.

•

Results suggest net changes in dietary GHG emissions only in the USA (a reduction).

---

Abstract

Dramatic increases in liquid biofuel production have led to concerns about associated impacts on food prices, with many modeling studies showing significant biofuel-related price inflation. In turn, by changing patterns of food demand, biofuel production may indirectly influence greenhouse gas emissions. We estimated changes to dietary energy (calorie) demand and greenhouse gas emissions embodied in average diets under different biofuel-related food-price scenarios for Brazil, China and the United States, using food-price projections and food-price elasticities. Average [dietary] energy demand decreased in all countries, from about 40 kcal per person per day in Brazil under a moderate price inflation scenario – a reduction of 1% relative to the (2009) reference scenario – to nearly 300 [kcal] per day in the United States with high price inflation – almost 8% of reference levels. However, emissions per calorie increased slightly in all three countries. In terms of total greenhouse gas emissions, the results are suggestive of overall reductions only in the United States, where average reductions ranged from about 40 to 110 kg of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions per person per year. In China, the direction of impact is unclear, but the net change is likely to be small. Brazilian results were sensitive to parameter values and the direction and magnitude of impact is therefore uncertain. Despite the uncertainty, even small changes (positive or negative) in individual dietary emissions can produce large changes at the population level, arguing for the inclusion of the dietary pathway in greenhouse gas accounting of liquid biofuels.

Review finds biofuels may be an energy sink instead of an energy source

A new review of the literature by SPPI and CO2 Science finds biofuel production to be inefficient and "may actually be an energy sink, instead of an energy source, relative to the global total primary energy supply for many years or decades."

This may explain why the EU energy ministers voted yesterday to limit production of biofuels made from food crops, since they "stoke inflation & do more environmental harm than good." 

For the Full Report in PDF Form, please click here.

[Illustrations, footnotes and references available in PDF version]

How efficient is it to produce energy from biofuels-is it more, less, or about the same as from traditional fossil fuels? This mini review summarizes what several scientists have learned when investigating this topic.

Clearly, energy from biofuels is not as efficient as some have made it out to be. 

New technology may actually be an energy sink, instead of an energy source, relative to the global total primary energy supply for many years or decades.

The development of biomass energy technologies in scale sufficient to be a significant source of energy may produce or exacerbate water shortages around the globe and be limited by the availability of fresh water. 

Even the EPA tacitly admits that ethanol is a bust

Put a Corn Cob in Your Tank

Even the EPA tacitly admits that ethanol is a bust.

WSJ.COM 8/18/13: A strong candidate for the most expensive policy blunder of recent years would have to be the mandate to blend corn ethanol and other biofuels into the nation's gasoline supply. This month even the Environmental Protection Agency essentially acknowledged that the program is increasingly unworkable and costly to consumers. The EPA just won't do much to fix it.

When these mandates were enacted in 2007 under George W. Bush, biofuels were sold as the wonder-fuel of the future: a cheap and plentiful domestic energy source to compete with OPEC oil and reduce global warming. Six years later none of those predictions have panned out.

One of the biggest debacles has been the law's requirement that the oil and gas industry mix cellulosic ethanol—made from the likes of switch grass and wood chips—into gasoline. The original law mandated the use of one billion gallons of cellulosic fuel in 2013, with even higher levels through 2022. This may have been the worst government forecast in history, which is saying something. Even with taxpayer subsidies, total cellulosic volume in 2012 was about 20,000 gallons. The government was off by a mere 99.9%.

In its annual program review this month, EPA reduced the mandate to six million gallons from 14 million. But even that is several million gallons above what can be bought anywhere. So the oil and gas industry has to pay what amounts to a fine (mostly passed on to consumers) for not buying enough cellulosic fuel that doesn't exist.

In January the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down EPA's 2012 cellulosic mandate as unrealistically high. The court also slapped EPA's enforcement as: "Do a good job, cellulosic fuel producers. If you fail, we'll fine your customers." The program should be terminated.

The EPA also updated its corn ethanol mandates. This year the overall biofuel quota stands at 16.55 billion gallons, up from 15.2 billion in 2012. As we explained in "The Ethanol Tax" on July 20, because gasoline consumption over the past six years has been much lower that the government predicted, refiners are now nearing a "blend wall" of a maximum 10% ethanol (E10) per gallon.

A survey by AAA found that only 5% of vehicles are approved for higher levels of ethanol under manufacturer warranty, so many motorists won't buy gas with higher ethanol content. In order to comply with the federal law, the oil and gas industry has to buy credits that spiked at more than $1 a gallon for the ethanol it can't use. This raises the cost of gasoline at the pump by an estimated five to 10 cents a gallon.

The EPA acknowledged that its ethanol mandate exceeds the level that can be reasonably blended, but it told refiners: tough luck, buy credits on the market. This is a back-door tax on gasoline and Congress should call the Administration on it.

EPA did at least signal that it will revise its 2014 mandate, which is scheduled to rise to above 18 billion gallons. The government report states: "Given these challenges" of the ethanol blend wall, "EPA anticipates that in the 2014 proposed rule, we will propose adjustments to the 2014 volume requirements." Some in the oil and gas industry applauded this minor EPA concession as a sign that the biofuels mandate will be slightly less onerous next year.

Maybe, but the biofuels program is a failure that can't be fixed with tweaks. If ethanol is the miracle fuel its defenders say it is, why must its use be mandated? The effect of the quotas has been to raise gas prices and make food more expensive as corn goes to fuel rather than food. A rash of studies also shows no net reduction or even an increase in greenhouse gas emissions from corn ethanol.

But no matter how indefensible the program, no one in the White House and few in Congress want to take on Big Corn. Americans should remember whom to thank the next time they pay $4 a gallon at the pump.

Big Ethanol Finally Loses

Big Ethanol Finally Loses
The political fuel is losing support as its costs and harm grow.


Nov. 17, 2013 6:07 p.m. ET

WSJ.COM: It's not often that the ethanol lobby suffers a policy setback in Washington, but it got its head handed to it Friday. The Environmental Protection Agency announced that for the first time it is lowering the federal mandate that dictates how much ethanol must be blended into the nation's gasoline. It's about time. It's been about time from the moment the ethanol mandate came to life in the 1970s.

The 16% reduction is a modest pullback, which EPA says will hold ethanol blends in gasoline at the standard 10% (E10). But we hope this is a precedent-setting victory. After 35 years of exaggerations about the benefits of renewable fuels, the industry has lost credibility.


For years the biofuels lobby has boasted that its product was a green alternative to emissions from oil and gas. But a growing body of scientific evidence is showing that ethanol consumes so much energy and fertilizer, and requires planting so much marginal cropland, that the impact on air quality is at best neutral and on water quality may be negative.

A report released earlier this year by the National Research Council concluded: "Although it may seem obvious that subsidizing biofuels should reduce CO2 emissions because they rely on renewable resources rather than fossil fuels, many studies we reviewed found the opposite." Environmental outfits such as the Environmental Working Group and the Sierra Club now oppose ethanol subsidies.

The EPA reduction is a small win for consumers. Since 1978 when the first "gasohol" subsidies were enacted, renewable fuel production tax credits have drained the Treasury of almost $40 billion. The tax subsidies expired recently, but consumers have still been forced to dole out billions at the pump because of the renewable fuel standards.

About 40% of corn production is now used not for food or livestock feed, but for fuel. This has raised the price of corn, and a 2009 study by the Congressional Budget Office found that in some years ethanol has raised retail food prices by 5% to 10% for everything from corn flakes to ground beef.
EPA hopes to prevent a 2014 replay of the biofuels fiasco that hit the gasoline market this year. When the original levels for renewable fuel standards were set in 2007, none of the sages in Washington anticipated that gasoline demand in the U.S. would plateau as it has over the past four years, largely because of more fuel-efficient cars.

This year's 14 billion gallon mandate required refiners such as Marathon and Valero to pay for hundreds of millions of gallons of renewable energy "credits" to avoid busting through the E10 blending wall. Few cars on the road are equipped to handle higher ethanol blends that can end up doing harm to engines. Despite a lack of demand, the ethanol lobby wants government to force a blend of E15 or higher on millions of consumers and force car makers to adapt their fleets to a fuel that offers less octane per mile traveled and no environmental benefit.

The EPA's modest reduction is a nod in the direction of market and technological reality. But expect the lobby to fight back ferociously, and it has powerful supporters in Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and GOP Senator Chuck Grassley. Democrats and Republicans who don't bow to Big Ethanol should unite to repeal the mandate for the good of consumers, business and the environment.

New paper finds existing cropland could feed an additional 4 billion people if not wasted on biofuels

Paging Paul Ehrlich:

Existing cropland could feed four billion more

by Staff WritersMinneapolis MN (SPX) Aug 08, 2013

Demand for crops is expected to double by 2050 as population grows and increasing affluence boosts meat consumption.

The world's croplands could feed 4 billion more people than they do now just by shifting from producing animal feed and biofuels to producing exclusively food for human consumption, according to new research from the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota.

Even a smaller, partial shift from crop-intensive livestock such as feedlot beef to food animals such as chicken or pork could increase agricultural efficiency and provide food for millions, the study says.

"We essentially have uncovered an astoundingly abundant supply of food for a hungry world, hidden in plain sight in the farmlands we already 

cultivate," says graduate research assistant Emily Cassidy, lead author of the paper published in Environmental Research Letters. "Depending on the extent to which farmers and consumers are willing to change current practices, existing croplands could feed millions or even billions more people."

Demand for crops is expected to double by 2050 as population grows and increasing affluence boosts meat consumption. Meat takes a particularly big toll on food security because it takes up to 30 crop calories to produce a single calorie of meat.

In addition, crops are increasingly being used for biofuels [which don't even reduce emissions] rather than food production. This study sought to quantify the benefit to food security that would accrue if some or all of the lands used to produce animal feed and fuel were reallocated to directly produce food for people.

To get at that question, Cassidy and colleagues first mapped the extent and productivity of 41 major crops between 1997 and 2003, adjusting numbers for imports and exports and calculating conversion efficiencies of animal feed using U.S. Department of Agriculture data. 

The researchers assumed humans need an average of 2,700 calories per day, and grazing lands and animals were not included in the study. Among the team's findings:

+ Only 12 percent of crop calories used for animal feed end up as calories consumed by humans.

+ Only 55 percent of crop calories worldwide directly nourish people.

+ Growing food exclusively for direct human consumption could boost available food calories up to 70 percent

+ U.S. agriculture alone could feed an additional 1 billion people by shifting crop calories to direct human consumption.

+ When calculated on the basis of protein rather than calories, results were similar. For instance, of all plant protein produced, 49 percent ends up in human diets.

In addition to the global findings, the research team looked at allocation of crop calories in four key countries: India, China, Brazil and the U.S. They found that while India allocates 90 percent of calories to feeding people, the other three allocate 58 percent, 45 percent, and 27 percent, respectively.

Noting the major cultural and economic dimensions involved, the researchers acknowledged that while a complete shift from animal to plant-based diets may not be feasible, even a partial shift would benefit food security. Quantifying the impact of various strategies, they found that a shift from crop-intensive beef to pork and chicken could feed an additional 357 million people, and a shift to nonmeat diets that include eggs and milk could feed an additional 815 million people.

The researchers emphasized that they are not making diet prescriptions or recommendations, just pointing out opportunities for gains in food production. They noted that humans can completely meet protein needs with plant-based diets, but that crop systems would need to shift (e.g., toward more production of protein-rich legumes) to meet human dietary needs.

"The good news is that we already produce enough calories to feed a few billion more people," Cassidy says. "As our planet gets more crowded or we experience disasters like droughts and pests, we can find ways of using existing croplands more efficiently."

WHY DO WE BURN OUR FOOD?

AUTHOR // Carl Brehmer

             Image via Wikimedia

      Out of curiosity I ran some numbers related to ethanol production, which turns food into fuel.  To produce one gallon of ethanol about 22 pounds of corn (1) needs to be sacrificed.  22 lbs of corn contains about 10,560 calories, (2) which is enough calories to feed one person for about four days. (3) Therefore the calories sacrificed to make 90 gallons of ethanol could sustain one person for an entire year.  Since the US currently produces 10.6 billion gallons (4) of ethanol yearly, enough corn is being sacrificed each year for ethanol production in the United States to feed 117 million people.  This is occurring at the same time that the United States Department of Agriculture is reporting that over 50,000,000 people living in the United States are in "food-insecure households" (5) because their families do not have sufficient funds to purchase adequate amounts of food.

      The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 mandates that by 2022 36 billion gallons of biofuels will be produced in the United States.  15 billion gallons of this biofuel is expected to come from corn. (6) This will require the sacrifice of enough food to feed 166,000,000 people--over half the current population of the United States.  This doesn't even take into consideration that it takes at least 2/3 gallon of fossil fuel, by the US Department of Energy's own figures, to produce one gallon of ethanol. (7)  (Ethanol producers do not use ethanol to produce ethanol because it is too expensive.)

      Why do we do this?  Because our policy makers have come to believe that the air-born plant food carbon dioxide is a “pollutant” (8) that must be reduced or severe damage will be done to the biosphere. Acting on this belief the US government is planning on turning enough food into fuel by 2022 that could feed half the population of the United States!  Even if carbon dioxide were a “pollutant” the use of biofuels produces little or no net reduction in carbon emissions since by some estimates it takes more energy to produce a gallon of ethanol than what one gets back from it when it is burned.  "Adding up the energy costs of corn production and its conversion to ethanol, 131,000 BTUs are needed to make 1 gallon of ethanol. One gallon of ethanol has an energy value of only 77,000 BTU." (9)  

      One might protest these figures saying that not all ethanol is made from corn, because there is also "cellulosic ethanol," which is made from the non-edible parts of plants. The problem is that there is "currently, no large-scale cellulosic ethanol production facilities . . . operating or under construction." (10)  This is because "cellulosic ethanol" is much more expensive to produce than corn ethanol.  For example, it is estimated that a large-scale "cellulosic ethanol" production facility would cost in the neighborhood of $300 million dollars to build (11) vs. $67 million for a corn-based plant of similar size and a number of "cellulosic ethanol" production hurdles have yet to be overcome. (12)

      So, why has carbon dioxide become a “pollutant” when throughout the known geological history of our planet it has been nothing more than air-born plant food?  Three words—“the greenhouse effect.”  In spite of what one might hear, “the greenhouse effect” is a highly controversial, scientific hypothesis that asserts that carbon dioxide, along with other “greenhouse gases,” is the Earth’s thermostat.  That is, humanity can control the temperature of the Earth by controlling the amount of carbon dioxide that it puts into the air mostly through the burning of “fossil” fuels, i.e., coal, natural gas, and oil.  Here are some scientists who contest that hypothesis (13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18,19).  Read what they have to say and make up your own mind. 

      Apart from the highly controversial notion that carbon dioxide has the power to regulate the Earth’s temperature, what is it?  In one word “food”—food for plants, which becomes food for animals, including human beings.  Carbon dioxide is food because carbon is one of the essential building blocks of organic life (Organic - “Belonging to a family of compounds characterized by chains or rings of carbon atoms.”[20]) and most life on earth is organic life.  Also, plants thrive in a carbon dioxide rich environment and along with water, nitrogen from the air and minerals from the soil, powered by sunlight, through the process of photosynthesis make food for animals to eat and oxygen for animals to breathe.  Did you know that gardeners actually pump up to four times the current atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide into greenhouses to promote plant growth?  So, even at current emission levels from the use of fossil fuels the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will not reach a level for optimal plant growth for at least 200 years and CO2 levels will not become toxic until well into the next ice age >10,000 years from now.  That is, of course, if the Earth’s natural processes of limiting atmospheric carbon dioxide levels cease to operate.  You see, since carbon dioxide is constantly being cycled through the natural “carbon cycle” much of the carbon dioxide that humanity has produced since the beginning of the industrial revolution has already been removed from the atmosphere.  In fact only 4% of the carbon dioxide currently in the atmosphere is from the burning of fossil fuels. (21) So, if carbon dioxide is, indeed, a pollutant than the Earth is polluting itself since 96% of the air's carbon dioxide content has come from natural sources.

      Beyond these points, global warming is a good thing that promotes life, e.g., human civilizations have always faired better during warm periods in history than during cold periods; more people die from cold every year than from heat; many plants die or go dormant in the winter and come to life in the spring and summer; the warm equator is teaming with life while the cold poles have sparse life. 

      The Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change produced the following video in time-lapse photography, which shows the profoundly positive effect that increased levels of carbon dioxide has on the growth of plants: http://www.co2science.org/education/truthalerts/v13/cowpea.php I have verified is effect experimentally in my own home. http://myweb.cableone.net/carlallen/Greenhouse_Effect_Research/CO2%20Enrichment%20Experiment.html

      Since fossil fuels produce carbon dioxide as a by-product, which promotes plant growth, they are, in reality, the only truly “green” source of energy that human beings use at the present time.  Replacing gasoline with ethanol will therefore not only reduce the amount of food that is available for humans; it will also reduce the amount of food that is available for plants.  That is, food that is turned into ethanol is not be available for human consumption and if ethanol does, in fact, reduce the concentration of carbon dioxide in the air then there will be less food available for plant consumption.  Wouldn't it therefore be wise to rethink this policy and practice?

  ______________________________ 

(1) From research performed at Cornell University http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Aug01/corn-basedethanol.hrs.html

(2) One pound of corn = 480 calories - http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_calories_in_one_pound_of_corn

(3) “United Nations UN recommends 2350 calories per day.”  http://wilderdom.com/games/descriptions/WorldMeal.html

(4)  Yearly U.S. Ethanol Production 2009 - http://www.biofuelsjournal.com/info/bf_articles.html?type=ec&;ID=25474

(5) http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/FoodSecurity/stats_graphs.htm

(6) “The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA) requires use of 36 billion gallons of renewable transportation fuels in the U.S. by 2022. Of that quantity, 16 billion gallons must be cellulosic biofuels. Ethanol from corn is capped at 15 billion gallons.”   http://www.energy.gov/news/archives/documents/Myths_and_Facts.pdf ibid.

(7) ". . . each gallon of ethanol produced from corn today delivers one third or more energy than is used to produce it."    US Department of Energy

 http://www.energy.gov/news/archives/documents/Myths_and_Facts.pdf

(8) See: Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, 549 U.S. 497 (2007)

(9) From research performed at Cornell University http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Aug01/corn-basedethanol.hrs.html

(10) US Department of Energy 2007, "Biofuels in the U.S. Transportation Sector," http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/analysispaper/biomass.html

(11) O. Port, “Not Your Father’s Ethanol,” Business Week (February 21, 2005), web site www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_08/b3921117.htm. 

(12) O’Neal, Michael, “Scientists seek cheap, plentiful energy alternatives,” October 13, 2006  http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0610130128oct13,0,2156857.story

(13) T.J Blom, W.A. Straver, F.J. Ingratta, Shalin Khosla - Factsheet Carbon Dioxide in Greenhouses - Order No. 94-077, Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs

(14) C. D. Idso and K. E. Idso, Carbon Dioxide and Global Warming, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change

(15) Clark, R., A Null Hypothesis For CO2, EPA submission, Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2009-0171 6/17/09

(16) Richard S. Lindzen and Yong-Sang Choi, On the determination of climate feedbacks from ERBE data Program in Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Revised on July 14, 2009 for publication to Geophysical Research Letters  “The observed behavior of radiation fluxes implies negative feedback processes associated with relatively low climate sensitivity.  This is the opposite of the behavior of 11 atmospheric models forced by the same SSTs.”

(17) Evans, David Dr., The Missing Hotspot, 21 July 2008, Last major revision 22 Mar 2009, Last minor revision 18 Sept 2010,

Web address: http://sciencespeak.com/MissingSignature.pdf

(18) Gerhard Gerlich and Ralf D. Tscheuschner,  “Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics,” International Journal of Modern Physics B, Vol. 23, No. 3 (30 January 2009), 275-364

(19) John O'Sullivan, Hans Schreuder, Claes Johnson, and Alan Siddons Slaying the Sky Dragon - Death of the Greenhouse Gas Theory, Jan 18, 2011, Stairway Press, 1500A East College Way #554 Mount Vernon, WA 98273, ISBN 978 0 9827734 0 6

(20) Encarta® World English Dictionary © 1999 Microsoft Corporation

(21) "Man's contribution to atmospheric CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels is small, maximum 4% found by carbon isotope mass balance calculations."  Segalstad, T. V. 1996: The distribution of CO2 between atmosphere, hydrosphere, and lithosphere; minimal influence from anthropogenic CO2 on the global "Greenhouse Effect". In Emsley, J. (Ed.): The Global Warming Debate. The Report of the European Science and Environment Forum. Bourne Press Ltd., Bournemouth, Dorset, U.K. (ISBN 0952773406), pp. 41-50. 

Ethanol increases emissions, fuel costs, engine damage, & food prices

House Ponders E15 Rollback Amid Risk of Engine Damage

Jason Mick The Daily Tech - July 1, 2013 7:05 PM

---

"Dirty" corn ethanol could soon be on the chopping block

Tom Buis, CEO of Growth Energy -- a pro-corn ethanol lobby -- cheered a recent Supreme Court victory over automakers and petroleum lobbyists who looked to block the sale of E15 blends.  He comments, "Now that the final word has been issued, I hope that oil companies will begin to work with biofuel producers to help bring new blends into the marketplace that allow for consumer choice and savings."

Bob Dinneen, president of the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) -- another top corn ethanol lobbying group -- echoes these sentiments.  Even as automakers warn of dire engine damage, he comments, "This is another example of oil companies unnecessarily scaring people, and it’s just flat-out wrong."

I. Corn Ethanol -- Good News or Bad?

But basic science suggests there may be more to it than that.  In order to handle higher ethanol blends, engine and fuel system parts made of rubber, plastic, metal, and other materials in engines must be coated with special sealants to prevent permeation of ethanol and degradation.  Older vehicles do not have that sealant -- so Mr. Dinneen appears to be basing his perspective on the fact that newer vehicles do, and thus will not be affected.

But aside from the engine life issue, there's other major concerns about corn ethanol.  First, after years of government subsidies for the use of corn as a sweetener, the commercial food industry is deeply dependent on corn syrup -- and by proxy corn crops.  Corn ethanol and corn syrup both compete for the same crop -- the most sugary breeds of corn.  And even when corn ethanol producers ferment with lower sugar feed corn, they still raise prices of livestock feed, bumping meat prices higher.  As a result, the corn ethanol industry has been shown to elevate food prices in multiple ways, according to experts.

_{The issues with corn ethanol run far deeper than engine damage.} 

Further, while ethanol is more efficient (per cost) in single-mode engines, in dual-mode engines (using blends), it's been shown that the customer gets less fuel economy when using various blends than if they went all ethanol or all gas.  In many cases this makes blended fuels more effective on a per-mile basis than gas.  Ethanol proponents insist the market will adjust, but it's yet to be seen if that actually happens.

Lastly, there are questions over whether corn ethanol is greenwashing.  When only emissions at the pipe are considered corn ethanol appears to cut emissions.  But when the entire life cycle -- from plough to pipe -- is considered, it appears that corn ethanol actually increases emissions (unlike a number of alternative biofuels).  Further, some have claimed the entire production process of ethanol has a net loss of energy, meaning that the industry uses more [fossil] fuel to grow, harvest, and ship corn ethanol than it gets out.

But for all the criticism, the fact remains that ethanol increases are currently the law of the land.  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed this year raising blending targets 16.5 billion gallons, up 8.5 percent from a year ago.  By 2022 production will double.  If those targets remain in place, it will be virtually impossible for refiners to sell anything but E15.  Refiners obtain a certain amount of credits for blending in ethanol; and if they don't blend enough they face stiff fines.

In fact, under the current rollout, it would be unsurprising to see E20 or E25 mixtures being forced into service to keep pace with the doubling of production quotas.

Many new vehicles -- including those from Chrysler Group LLC, Toyota Motor Corp. (TYO:7203), Nissan Motor Comp., Ltd. (TYO:7201), Bayerische Motoren Werke AG (BMW), and Volkswagen AG (ETR:VOW) still do not support E15; using E15 in them will void your warranty, according to the automakers, regardless of what the federal policy mandates.  But this situation may worsen in years ahead, as even automakers like Ford Motor Comp. (F) who support E15 do not support E20 or E25 in most of their models (some "E85" capable vehicles are sold, but they remain a minority).

In other words, even if your vehicle can use E15 without damage, you may be in the same position Chrysler, Toyota, Nissan, BMW, and Volkswagen owners are in today, just down the road.  When higher blends arrive, you may be just a fillup away from voiding your warranty.

II. Is it Time to Reform or Roll Back the Energy Act of 2007?

Amidst that backdrop, there is some growing momentum in Washington D.C. to roll back the 2007 Energy Act, which was signed by President George W. Bush.  Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee is quoted by The Detroit News as saying that a bill to reform that 2007 law is incoming, with the aim of passing it by the end of this year.

Much of the debate in the House currently centers on whether the best option is to kill the original law altogether, or whether it'd be better to modify it in some regard scaling back targets.  Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) proposed killing it, but his colleague Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Kentucky) is fighting to simply rework it, commenting, "We want is an RFS (renewable fuel standard) that can work for everyone involved, be it farmers, renewable fuel producers, refiners, and automakers. And most importantly, we want a policy that benefits the American driving public."

These stands represent largely who the representatives received their money from.  Rep. Barton is funded/sponsored by the likes of Pickens Comp., and Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) [source].  Rep. Whitfield is funded/sponsored by Koch Industries, who owns ethanol plants, and Caterpillar Inc. (CAT) who makes machinery used harvest corn [source].

The big question is what will happen if a repeal or reworking makes it to the Senate floor.  The Democratic controlled Senate has shown very little interest in trimming back corn ethanol blending targets.  The blame cannot be pinned solely on Democrats; both Senators from both parties have been more heavily funded by "big corn" than their House colleagues.  That said, the Democrats are leading the push to protect corn ethanol at present, with the likes of Senators Tom Harkin (D-Iowa); Tim Johnson (D-South Dakota); Amy Klobuchar (D/"Farmer-Labor Party"- Minnesota); and Al Franken (D/"Farmer-Labor Party"-Minnesota) fighting rollbacks.
 

_{Big corn has won over politicians with via its friend "bill". [Image Source: Agriculture.com]}

In fact these Senators proposed increasing ethanol quotas via the trickily worded Biofuels Expansion Act of 2011.  Thus it remains to be seen whether an effort to scale back targets can survive, amidst heavy lobbying from the corn industry (even as the other side lobbies hard as well).

Meanwhile the E15 mass rollout creeps closer.  Currently only a handful of stations in the Midwest carry the blend, as most refiners have not yet started its mass production.  But with the Supreme Court refusing to hear appeals on the standard, it seems just a matter of time before E15 is pouring out the pump across the nation -- even if that fuel damages your older vehicle, RV, boat, or motorcycle.

Related:
Why do we burn our food?
Prior posts on ethanol
Biofuels even less green than previously thought