Neal Lesmeister — Mar 25 2008 02:28 PM

I've seen first hand the damage done by biofuels and it is well documented the global warming impacts that are worse than anything we've seen so far. Please help us in Minnesota who are fighting the loss of millions of acres of prairie, forest, peatbog, wetlands that biofuels is causing. At increased are dozens of birds, amphibians, plants, insects, mammals. Please NRDC just say no to Bush and call for an end to all biofuel destruction now.

Cindy Zimmerman — Mar 27 2008 05:14 PM

Nathanael,

Thanks so much for your point by point refutation of Mr. Pimentel's short-sighted article. I would add one other point.

He says: "biofuel enthusiasts — including agribusiness lobbyists and PR firms — suggest that ethanol produced from corn and cellulosic biomass such as grasses could replace much of the oil used in the United States."

No one says that. That is one of the naysayers favorite arguments - we can't replace much gasoline with ethanol, so why bother. Fact is, ANY domestically-made fuel that replaces imported oil is a net gain for America.

Tom Philpott — Mar 29 2008 10:43 AM

There's plenty to chew on here; and I'm glad to see informed debate on the issue. I look forward to engaging with you on it.

For now, I have to ask to expand a bit on this idea: "You'll excuse me if I don't give much credence to the USDA when the private sector is leading the way." You'll have to excuse me when I say, the private sector is doing ... wha'????

You point us to "6 DOE commercial-scale cellulosic biofuels grants." Uh, aren't those funded by the public sector, ie, us?

Also, one can't help noting from the accompanying chart that most of those projects haven't started yet: precisely the study authors' point.

Also, you dismiss concerns about switchgrass -- not so long ago hailed a panacea-- by saying that you favor "integration of food and biomass production." I'm interested in hearing more about that; at first blush, it sounds like the old corn stover idea. That model only works if you see corn stover as a waste product -- which, from the perspective of soil that's been smothered in monocrops and fed a steady diet of anhydrous ammonia and mined minerals for decades, is a pretty dismal view.

Indeed, I would like to see your take on what I've called "Biofuel and the fertilizer problem."

I admit to having had a merry chuckle at your characterization of my "cynical effort to discredit [an] academic study before citing it." Has NRDC become so enamored of corporate-led "solutions" to environmental crises that it's impolite (cynical, even!) to mention that a study author holds the Pioneer Hi-Bred International Chair in Agribusiness?

Fascinatingly, the study author -- joining a USDA researcher, the (ethanol-loving) chair of the House AG Committee, and an Iowa ag-economics consultancy -- concludes that cellulosic ethanol probably isn't viable.

I predict a quiet move among ethanol boosters over to that view. Sugarcane will be the next panacea -- mark my words.

Ron Steenblik — Mar 31 2008 05:26 PM

Tim Searchinger has described the defense of current biofuel policies because of what biofuels COULD offer if "done right" (or, as Nathanael calls it, if they follow the "green and narrow" path), as evidence of belief in a "reverse Murphy's Law": If something can go right, it will.

Experience so far with biofuels seems more likely to confirm the original Murphy's Law, however.

Russ Finley — Apr 1 2008 01:45 AM

Tom sure doesn’t' need me for backup. But this other commenter could use some. In response to a plea for the NRDC to stop supporting the subsidization of biofuels Green has this to say:

"I would however disagree that it's well documented that all biofuels are worse for the climate than oil"

Note that the commenter never used the word "all." Greene added that word to build a strawman he could knock down. It has been well documented that all biofuels being produced in commercial quantities are worse for oil except those made from waste grease, and to be honest with you, if someone were to study waste grease, they would probably find that the usurpation of that recyclable source by biofuels is forcing other users of that waste grease to turn to virgin vegetable oils.

The New York times: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/08/science/earth/08wbiofuels.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Time Magazine: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1725975,00.html

Newsweek: http://www.newsweek.com/id/110636

Science magazine:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/317/5840/902.pdf
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/rapidpdf/1151861v1.pdf
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/rapidpdf/1152747v1.pdf
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/318/5857/1721b.pdf

The Journal of Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics:

http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/8/389/2008/acp-8-389-2008.pdf

The Swiss Federal Institute for Materials Science: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2976

Journal of Conservation Biology: http://news.mongabay.com/2007/1004-biodiesel.html

Cellulosic ethanol does not exist in commercial format. Using a biofuel that does not exist (that has never been proven economically or environmentally viable) to support mandates and subsidization of biofuels is disingenuous. Here are a couple of common sense graphics for those without subscriptions to Science:

http://home.comcast.net/~russ676/biodiesel/bob.html
http://gristmill.grist.org/images/admin/crayon2.JPG

And then there is this :

"… we cannot afford to just say no [to biofuel mandates and subsidization]."

That's an unsubstantiated opinion. The above links argue that we cannot afford to let this continue. The NRDC's embrace of what has proven to be an unprecedented environmental and food debacle, combined with ongoing efforts to sugarcoat this gaff in judgement in the face of so much science is ... well, pick you own word.

john schneider — Apr 2 2008 04:10 PM

Ahh, the main problem is that biofuels are not carbon neutral. It's going to be hard to get around that. It's a wrong assumption built into all calculations and arguments for biofuel.

When you remove biomass, convert it to fuel, and butn it, that biomass does not return to the soil and slowly give up some of it's carbon each year. Prairie soil was 20 feet thick with stored carbon.

Humans have burned that stored carbon with chemical fertlizer.

The carbon in food crops can be mainly returned to the soil as digested manure and biomass. But fuel crops don't return anything, all the carbon is released.

Conservation land sequesters all the carbon captured by the biomass. Prairie soil sequesters 1.8 tons per acre per year. When you mow the prairie grass, mainly switchgrass, convert it to fuel, and guzzle it in an internal combustion engine at 14% efficiency. The carbon is not sequestered.

Land is not created out of thin air for your much touted equation of carbon neutrality Nathaniel, it once had living soil and plants that removed CO2 and sequestered it, before chemical ag left it an inert chemical growing media.

David Ahlport — Apr 2 2008 06:21 PM

_

I appreciate the work that NRDC does,
But I really wish NRDC's focus for Global Warming was on Results, rather than getting hung up on specific methods.

_

==Dr. Pimentel has made a name for himself by repeating old data that is out of line with the peer-reviewed literature. (Check out Alex Farrell's EBAMM and the supporting materials from the related Science article to get a sense of where Pimentel's data an outlier.) The only news here is that Pimentel seems to have finally acknowledged that corn ethanol has a positive return of fossil fuel investment.==

Who cares about "Positive Energy Return"?
Coal-to-Liquids has a Positive Energy Return.
Tar-Sands has a Positive Energy Return.

Whats important is Greenhouse emissions.

And the *real* news is that Alex Farrell NOW agrees that Corn Ethanol is worse than liquid coal in Greenhouse emissions.
http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2008/01/23/more-bad-news-for-ethanol/

And Farrell points out that land-use is not nearly covered enough in these sorts of policy discussions. (Or his previous models)
http://greyfalcon.net/landuse.pdf
http://i-r-squared.blogspot.com/2008/03/how-corn-ethanol-destroys-rain-forests.html

_

Additionally, Coskata's CEO, now admits that there is absolutely no difference between the technology used for coal-to-liquids, and cellulosic ethanol.
http://greyfalcon.net/coskata
http://greyfalcon.net/cellulosics.pdf

And considering there's not going to be enough raw biomass to support any meaningful cellulosic process.
http://greyfalcon.net/biolimits.png
http://www.stopbp-berkeley.org/CellulosicBiofuels.pdf
What you'd be building is gigantic 30 year loan projects which have no choice but to file for bankruptcy, or produce liquid coal.
http://greyfalcon.net/fossilenergy.png

_

Now certainly, we could pray that Algae will come to the rescue, and for that, I say good luck.
http://greyfalcon.net/algae4
http://greyfalcon.net/algae
But even if they figured that out, it'd still be kneecapped by a scarcity of phosphorous.
http://greyfalcon.net/algae5

Considering there's more heat in all the $1 bills invested in algae, than the algae itself;
I'd say thats a rather weak assumption to base the fate of the world on.
http://algae-thermodynamics.blogspot.com/2007/11/cash-burn-vs-algae-diesel.html

_

When it all comes down to it, photosynthesis is a big loser when it comes to converting solar energy into a liquid fuel.
When you include the inefficiencies of combustion engines, we're looking at nearly a 1000-to-1 difference in the conversion of solar energy into torque.
(Compared to SolarThermal + Electric Cars)
http://greyfalcon.net/sugarsolar

_

And while we're at it Smog:
Ozone makes Smog
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/04/18/MNG7EPAN601.DTL
N2O makes Smog
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/03/researchers-f-1.html
And ethanol has since been removed as federal blending requirements due to a lawsuit filed by California over concerns about Smog.
http://feinstein.senate.gov/news-corn0611.html
http://www.epa.gov/fedrgstr/EPA-AIR/2006/May/Day-08/a4252.htm
Smog Melts the Arctic
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2006/troposphere_ozone.html
_

And back onto your comment about Farrell's study, and "peer review":

==Of the four articles that showed a positive net energy for ethanol in Farrells 2006 Science article, three were not peer reviewed (i.e. the Ones by the USDA/DOE). The only positive peer-reviewed article (Dias De Oliveira, 2005) states "The use of ethanol as a substitute for gasoline proved to be neither a sustainable nor an environmentally friendly option" and the "environmental impacts outweigh its benefits". Dias De Oliveria concluded there’d be a tremendous loss of biodiversity, and if all vehicles ran on E85 and their numbers grew by 4% per year, by 2048, the entire country, except for cities, would be covered with corn.==
http://culturechange.org/cms/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=107

Could you perhaps assume that studies by the USDA/DOE/Khosla don't exist.
And then base your policy rhetoric on that?

Or at least admit that conventional biofuels do significantly more harm than good.

David Ahlport — Apr 3 2008 12:35 AM

Well, I've been having trouble's posting here (probably too many web links), so I'll post just one link to a personal webpage hosting my response.

In short, I think there's a few big mistakes about peer review, cellulosics, corn, Farrell, etc in this article.

Here's a link to my post:
http://greyfalcon.net/greene