The WSJ tries to use biofuels fear factor to urge climate inaction
- Nathanael Greene
- Director of Renewable Energy Policy, New York City
- Blog | About
- Posted October 31, 2009 in Moving Beyond Oil , Solving Global Warming
Recently, I posted a video and a narrative explanation about a critical accounting error that threatens to turn climate legislation into a big incentive for deforestation. Put as simply as possible, the House climate bill and the Boxer-Kerry Senate bill both assume that burning most biomass is exactly carbon neutral, meaning that it doesn’t result in an increase or decrease in atmospheric levels of global warming pollution. Burning biomass to replace coal or natural gas or oil can be good for the climate or bad for it depending on the source of biomass, but it will almost never be exactly neutral, and the climate bill can’t encourage better bioenergy if we refuse to count the emissions. In fact, a climate bill that assumes all biomass has no emissions won’t be able to achieve its goals.
In a recent editorial the Wall Street Journal got right the basic idea that this loophole is a big deal but then jumped to the wrong conclusion, suggesting that rather than fix this biomass loophole we should just be afraid of the future. As a friend of mine put it, it’s like we’re tied to the tracks with the coal powered steam engine of climate change barreling towards us. The loophole will make it harder for us to get off the tracks, most people are focused on how to make getting off the tracks as profitable as possible, but the WSJ would just have us throw up our hands in despair. But, hey, 50% right is pretty good for the WSJ editorial board.
Sadly, the idea that we shouldn’t fully and scientifically account for the pros and cons of biofuels has become a theme for the industry as of late. As part of another one of the infamous last minute deals in the House climate bill, the corn ethanol industry lobbied successfully for a provision that would prohibit EPA from fully accounting for land-use change emissions from biofuels when implementing the RFS. As mentioned earlier, the industry has also been attacking the definition of renewable biomass, expanding that to the point where it doesn’t provide any meaningful protections. And in parallel with all of this, the industry has been lobbying to force EPA to approve the use of blends of ethanol and gasoline with more than 10% ethanol even though the health and safety testing of such blends hasn’t been completed.
The driving force behind all of this? The corn ethanol industry’s plan to increase their market from 15 billion gallons to around 25 billion. The corn growers are already planning to production and just trying to knock down the barriers one at a time. This from Philip Brasher’s blog:
It’s too early, the growers said, to know when they’ll ask Congress to raise the 15-billion-gallon mandate.
“Basically we’re trying to take care of those hurdles one at a time,” [Darrin] Ihnen [president of the National Corn Growers Association] said.
The specter of gutted biofuels policies opening the door to lots more corn ethanol is worthy of the WSJ fears, but we are not helpless victims here. I wrote on Thursday about a proposal to reform the biofuels tax credits to pay for performance rather than the current norm, which just pays for volume. But to make this change, we have to start actually measuring the real performance of biofuels. That’s the bottom line here: we can’t get biofuels right if we don’t start counting it right.
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Comments
Layla — Nov 1 2009 08:19 AM
Hmm.. I wonder if this is GMO-free corn, or not?
I agree about the need for scientific research and not just 'making deals' blindly!
I don't care so much about just the CO2, as there are MUCH more dangerous toxics out there!! And those (and their health effects) should be evaluated and measured first!!
Brooke Coleman — Nov 1 2009 10:22 AM
Nathaniel,
It is becoming increasingly obvious that NRDC is growing more oriented toward an anti-corn bias than a pro "good" biofuels perspective, all the rhetoric and promises aside.
If corn is for it, I guess you are against it, even though the blend wall issue is at least as important for advanced biofuel investments as it is for the corn ethanol industry. Clearly, one of the problems with next generation investments is saturation of currently available markets. Big Oil knows this -- which is why they are firmly on your side on the blend wall issue. The question is: why does NRDC not understand this?
You also continue to misrepresent indirect land use change as full carbon accounting. Full carbon accounting has never included emissions from someone else's supply chain. You have reshaped what "full lifecycle" means for one fuel, while not doing it for other fuels. We need to stop pretending land is the only finite resource on this planet. Crude is unlimited? Electricity production is unlimited? Nickel and Lithium mining comes without ecological impact? I dont see NRDC calling for inclusion of these impacts in "full" lifecycle accounting.
Yes, the renewability shortcut discussion is worth having. Yes, making sure bad things dont happen on the margin as a result of policies is a discussion worth having and reasonable protections are worth pursuing. But pretending that only biofuels cause market-mediated effects (and Peterson didn't have a point) drives the outcomes that frustrate you (ag not stopping at the discussion table on their way to political solutions).
Your proposal for tax credits is interesting. But again, I fear it wont gain traction coming from an organization that insists on stoking the fires that pit embedded political interests against the green cause. Hopefully you will lead a new direction, as you have before, and stop NRDC from acting like FOE, Clean Air Task Force and others who have been so motivated by their disdain for corn that they have taken territorial positions that weaken their goals.
Now we have an NRDC led definition of renewable biomass in the Senate climate bill that is even more restrictive and vague than the House Bill, which has sparked a whole new round of anti-climate bill angst in the agricultural sector. It's yet another problem for midwest democrats who should be on your side. Maybe it's a retaliation for the renewable biomass definition wars of earlier this year, but even in judging the new definition on its face, it doesn't look too productive. If I am wrong, perhaps NRDC opposes this new definition as too extreme on the other side of the ledger?
The window is getting smaller to get something done here. Unreasonable rhetoric and proposals from both sides -- whether they be attacks on land protections or the stoking on anti-corn baloney -- will not get us closer to a climate bill before May.
Just an opinion from someone who sees more than one ideological warrior in the ring.
Russ Finley — Nov 2 2009 09:51 AM
I'm not of fan of the WSJ but they got it right when they pointed out the bait and switch tactic being used by corn ethanol lobbyists:
"..The ethanol lobby is attempting a giant bait-and-switch: Keep claiming that cellulosic ethanol is just around the corner, even as it knows the only current technology to meet federal mandates is corn ethanol.."
Coleman said:
"..Clearly, one of the problems with next generation investments is saturation of currently available markets.."
Clearly, a government forcing its citizens to use food as a fuel does not fit any definition of the word market I've ever seen. Using the word market to describe government-mandated use is a gross deception.
Coleman said:
"..Big Oil knows this -- which is why they are firmly on your side on the blend wall issue. The question is: why does NRDC not understand this.."
Big Oil? There is no difference between a big biofuel exec and a big oil exec. The good-cop/bad-cop defense is starting to get dog-eared. Oil companies and biofuel companies have both made billions off the blending subsidies. They are both out to make money, whatever that takes. Oil companies, or companies that look and act just like them, will eventually own all biofuel production. Liquid fuels is what they do. Valero, using some chump change, recently bought in a single purchase almost 7% of all corn ethanol refinery capacity.
BP will be opening a commercial biobutanol plant in a few years. Total (world's fourth-largest oil and gas company) has also invested in biobutanol. Biobutanol has higher energy density and can be blended into gas in higher concentrations than ethanol. Unlike ethanol, it can share the existing oil pipe distribution system, no more tanker explosions and fires. So, what happens when you pull into a gas station and mix biobutanol, gasoline, and ethanol all in one tank? That will be interesting.
"…which is why they are firmly on your side on the blend wall issue.."
What were the corn ethanol lobbyists back in 2007 planning to do the day we hit the 10% blend wall? Lobby to raise it of course. And what do they plan to do when we hit the 15% blend wall? By the corn ethanol lobby's logic, corn ethanol has not and will never have a significant impact on food prices, ergo there is no reason not to put all of our corn into our gas tanks. And they will if we let them get away with it.
The blend wall issue is about the rights of American citizens. To increase profit margins, lobbyists plan to use the government to force even more corn ethanol down American's throats. This magnitude of government intervention is unprecedented and testimony to the fact that some lobbyists wield too much power.
It might be acceptable in the struggle against global warming if this fuel cost less, was really renewable (70% fossil fuel), less environmentally destructive than gasoline, and actually made a measurable dent in oil imports, but it doesn't fit any of these criteria. And to ice the cake, it isn't even compatible with our fuel infrastructure or car engines!
There are thousands upon thousands of car makes and models on the roads spanning decades. They are all impacted differently by different blends of ethanol:
http://biodiversivist.blogspot.com/2009/09/corn-ethanol-shuts-down-police-cruisers.html
Older cars, typically owned by lower income people will see a disproportional impact. Old, cracked rubber seals are particularly vulnerable to ethanol, and metals without enough corrosion protection will be corroded by the water it retains, causing pump, line, carburetor, and injector failures. Air pollution O2 sensors will be impacted. I own an older car. In the past few years I've replaced the fuel pump, injectors, two O2 sensors, and a gas cap, which had a rubber seal that fell apart in my hands. All fuel system components.
I'm utterly confident that if somebody did a study to see if there has been an increase in fuel system repairs concurrent with increases in ethanol blends you guys would fight the study tooth and nail and denigrate the researchers like you do the researchers publishing work on land displacement.
Coleman said:
"..You have reshaped what "full lifecycle" means for one fuel, while not doing it for other fuels.."
Nathaniel has not reshaped anything. He's just responding to peer reviewed science from the journals Science and Nature among others. And, where are these "other fuels" that have managed to escape having their carbon footprints accounted for?
Coleman said:
"..We need to stop pretending land is the only finite resource on this planet. Crude is unlimited? Electricity production is unlimited? Nickel and Lithium mining comes without ecological impact? I dont see NRDC calling for inclusion of these impacts in "full" lifecycle accounting.."
We need to stop pretending that we can use corn for both food and fuel. Ecological impacts of oil and biofuels have been assessed in study after study. It's lobbyists like you who keep politicians subsidizing coal, oil, and biofuels regardless of impacts. Oil just happens to displace very little land per gallon compared to agrofuels. That's an inconvenient truth for food-based biofuel proponents. Growing crops takes a great deal of land.
Coleman said:
"..I fear it wont gain traction coming from an organization that insists on stoking the fires that pit embedded political interests against the green cause.."
"The green cause?" Look, Brooke, I realize that you are a lawyer, and as a lawyer it's your job to convince the jury, rightly or wrongly, but you need to catch up on your reading. Start with this article in Nature:
"..Now, largely because of a rapidly growing reliance on fossil fuels and "industrialized forms of agriculture", human activities have reached a level that could damage the systems that keep Earth in the desirable Holocene state.."
Source: http://biodiversivist.blogspot.com/2009/10/transgressing-identified-and-quantified.html
Follow that with this study done for the WWF:
“...no deforestation, no competition for land between bioenergy production and food production and protection of biodiversity and nature conservation ..Bioenergy is potentially CO2 neutral. However, the expansion of palm oil and tropical crops, such as sugarcane, for biofuel production could become a significant driver of deforestation. Bioenergy developments must therefore be appropriately regulated to prevent further deforestation.."
"..Since there are alternatives for land-based transport – but not for air and sea, as it stands today – the priority allocation of sustainable biofuels must be to the aviation and shipping sectors …energy demand from the land-based transport sector is met through grid-connected renewable sources.."
Source: http://biodiversivist.blogspot.com/2009/10/wwf-study-puts-global-warming-into.html
Your arguments are myopic.
Coleman said:
"..Hopefully you will lead a new direction, as you have before, and stop NRDC from acting like FOE, Clean Air Task Force and others who have been so motivated by their disdain for corn that they have taken territorial positions that weaken their goals.."
Hopefully, you will lead a new direction and stop the New Fuels Alliance from acting like the RFA, the National Biodiesel Board, and others who have been so motivated by profit that they have created farcical, outrageous arguments that weaken their goals, although, that's actually a good thing.
This isn't a disdain of corn. The NRDC did not make all of this up. This is all based on peer reviewed papers in reputable scientific publications. You are cherry picking your science. If you use the science behind global warming to market your product as a low carbon fuel, you don't get to throw out the science that says it isn't a low carbon fuel.
Coleman said:
"..The window is getting smaller to get something done here. Unreasonable rhetoric and proposals from both sides -- whether they be attacks on land protections or the stoking on anti-corn baloney -- will not get us closer to a climate bill before May.."
The window to stop global warming is rapidly closing, see the WWF report above. The hundreds of billions spent on corn ethanol have done nothing to slow global warming and have in fact, made things worse. It has sucked up funding and moved us one step backwards. It is an example of how to do it wrong. The only people on this entire planet who have benefited from corn ethanol legislation is an infinitesimally small percentage of people with a grossly out of proportion lobbying machine.
Brooke Coleman — Nov 2 2009 01:09 PM
Russ,
You have pulled out the fire hose and buried me in a pile of straw men.
I am not making most of the arguments you suggest I am making. I agree with alot of what you suggest in terms of threats to pristine lands and biodiversity. Not all biofuels are carbon reductive, but many are. Agricultural intensification is a very serious problem.
But if we are to properly account for the true value of all these fuels relative to fossil fuels for the RFS or the climate program, we need to compare them apples-to-apples. The blend wall is about opening markets to new fuels, not further mandating biofuels. And it is a very basic notion that including indirect effects for one fuel and not another skews their relative values, large or small.
A discussion that touches on substantive technical issues and legislative challenges for carbon accounting would be superior to the ideological warfare. My point was that we need reasonable pathways.