Q Microbe achieves unprecedented ethanol outputs

[JohnWxy]

http://biomassmagazine.com/article.jsp?article_id=2881




Its Q Microbe can achieve outputs of 70 grams of ethanol per liter of fermentation broth, or 9 percent ethanol by volume, in a single-step process on industrially pretreated cellulosic biomass feedstocks such as corn stover, sugarcane and woody biomass, according to the company. The threshold for commercial production of cellulosic ethanol is considered to be 50 grams per liter. Qteros says this breakthrough makes its process the most economic to date.

The microbe was discovered about 12 years ago in Massachusetts’ Quabbin Reservoir by a University of Massachusetts research team led by Susan Leschine, a microbiologist at the university. It was collected in a sample for another survey and its potential was not realized until about eight years later. The microbe combines the fermentation and hydrolysis steps into one and uses its own enzymes.

In the last year alone, the Qteros scale-up team has increased ethanol concentrations by a factor of five in the solution that’s produced when the Q Microbe hydrolyzes and liquefies (sic_jw) biomass, according to President and CEO William Frey. Even though it has reached world-class outputs with a nongenetically engineered strain of the microbe, the company expects to make further improvements by taking advantage of ongoing efforts in molecular genetics and strain development, according to Qteros.


“We knew from the beginning that the Q Microbe was an extraordinary microorganism,” Leschine said in her announcement Tuesday at the World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology and Bioprocessing in Montreal, Canada. “These results confirm what we predicted: Qteros and the Q Microbe can make cellulosic ethanol a commercial reality.”


http://www.qteros.com/technology/qmicrobe/

"The Q Microbe's unique properties put it at the cutting edge of cellulosic ethanol production. Its continued development will lead to plants all around the country sustainably producing billions of gallons of cellulosic ethanol annually."

[comtec]

1. um.. wow!!!

I know I know
"we should be looking to eliminate any ICE engine technology.." blah blah blah.
Look know we need to take carbon out of the air that has been put there by burning fossil fuels.
but by making and using ethanol, we are NOT INCREASING CARBON!
we're pretty much recycling it.

By increasing how much can be produced from so much mass we can drastically reduce our use of fossil fuels.
We can probably eliminate coal tomorrow for everything.
Oil will take longer to completely eliminate, because we need it for plastics, but we could feasibly eliminate it's wasteful use for auto fuel.
Air planes will probably still need it for some time however.
Rockets don't use it. They use a much gnarlier concoction of chemicals and gases for thrust.

Using bio diesel isn't really better, but it's also not worse. using bio-fuels is a zero sum game - which sadly right now would be an improvement.

[kristopher]

3. "...not increasing carbon"?

Are you sure?

Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions from Land-Use Change
Timothy Searchinger,1* Ralph Heimlich,2 R. A. Houghton,3 Fengxia Dong,4 Amani Elobeid,4 Jacinto Fabiosa,4 Simla Tokgoz,4 Dermot Hayes,4 Tun-Hsiang Yu4

Most prior studies have found that substituting biofuels for gasoline will reduce greenhouse gases because biofuels sequester carbon through the growth of the feedstock. These analyses have failed to count the carbon emissions that occur as farmers worldwide respond to higher prices and convert forest and grassland to new cropland to replace the grain (or cropland) diverted to biofuels. By using a worldwide agricultural model to estimate emissions from land-use change, we found that corn-based ethanol, instead of producing a 20% savings, nearly doubles greenhouse emissions over 30 years and increases greenhouse gases for 167 years. Biofuels from switchgrass, if grown on U.S. corn lands, increase emissions by 50%. This result raises concerns about large biofuel mandates and highlights the value of using waste products.


Science 29 February 2008:
Vol. 319. no. 5867, pp. 1238 - 1240
DOI: 10.1126/science.1151861

[comtec]

4. of course if you convert forest land it's going to have an impact

I talking about strict... oh nevermind.
look you're going to complain and bitch about this kind of stuff no matter what I say.
so go ahead, bitch moan and bullshit all you want.

at the end of the day if you stop adding to the carbon in the air - from fossil fuels - you are simply re-cycling it.

you can't change the basic soup and granola mix that is the earth.

matter can not be destroyed, or created, only changed.

if we dig up carbon, that's "adding", if we put it in the ground that's "subtracting".
if we use plants - which absorb carbon - that's recycling.

[kristopher]

5. It's called "understanding" , not bitching, not moaning...

You wrote: "if we dig up carbon, that's "adding"; and you are correct.

You also wrote: "you can't change the basic soup and granola mix that is the earth"; that's incorrect.

When you alter a field's function - let's say from forest to farmland - you alter the "basic soup and granola mix that is the earth" by releasing some amount of the carbon that is sequestered in that patch of forest and the soil under it.

The frustration evident in your post tells me you just want an easy solution to a problem that doesn't have one. Sorry about that. There are ways to get biofuels that will not result in the problem highlighted by my earlier post, so don't give up. We just have to exercise enough prudence in their development.

[JohnWxy]

7. hardly a surprise that cmt #3 is not even relevant to the OP. But does repeat the laughable

Searchinger hypothesis positing ILUC (Indirect land Use Changes) effects of a surge in starch based ethanol production - one which has suffered severe criticism for lack of logical, legitimate methodology and for not providing enough information so real researchers can test the hypothesis.

To treat this as real science is like calling an issue of Batman from Marvel comics a work of great literature.

Robin: "Wholly hypotheses Batman, you're a scientist!!"

Batman: "Well, who says we have to leave science to real scientists."

Well, mayber to avoid screwball results???

Here are a few excerpts from a criticism of Batman's, .... I mean Searchinger's hypothesis:

For the record, Searchinger is a graduate of Yale Law school.

http://www.ethanolrfa.org/objects/documents/2314/biofpr_apr_2009.pdf

Note, too, that no model is provided in the Searchinger et al.
paper together with parameters used, which would enable
others (like ourselves) to replicate the results and probe the
workings of the model.‡‡ Instead there are simply references
to the models employed at CARD (references which fall well
short of full specifi cation) and results only are reported. Th is
falls somewhat short of the scientifi c method where results
reported are supposed to be replicable by other parties.§§


~~
~~


Actually there are available alternative views as to the
carbon released by changes in land use by bodies as reputable
as the IPCC (above) and the OECD. These make much more
reasonable assumptions than employed in Searchinger et al.
The OECD, for example, estimates that the US EISA
program and the new EU Directive on Renewable Energy
(DRE) together are expected to increase use of ethanol by
some 17% by 2013–2017, i.e., 19.4 billion liters.22 However,
the impact on total crop area in the world is much more
modest compared with the calculation of Searchinger et al.,
rising by less than 1% from the baseline of about 6.8 million
ha, as shown in Fig. 3. Most of the increase will occur in
North America and little change in Asia.


~~
~~

In fact, the kind of ILUC effects that form the basis of the
calculations offered by Searchinger et al. (calculations that
are not in fact replicable by other scientifi c laboratories since
key models and relationships and parameters are not specifi
ed) simply open up the prospect of endless scientifi c debate
and controversy. Th ere can never be a ‘defi nitive’ calculation
of ILUC eff ects since such eff ects depend, as we have shown
in this perspective, crucially on the kinds of assumptions
made, which in turn make all kinds of assumptions as to
regulatory impositions and world trade developments.

This is why basing national rule making on LCA of
biofuels, imposing certain standards or measures based on
LCA on biofuels consumed in a certain country or region
– as is reportedly under consideration in the USA by the
EPA and in Europe by the EU – is ultimately indefensible.
~~
~~

Indeed if you wished to put US ethanol production in
the worst possible light, assuming the worst possible set of
production conditions guaranteed to give the worst possible
ILUC effects, then the assumptions chosen would not be
far from those actually presented (without argument or
discussion of alternatives) in the Searchinger et al. paper.
This, together with the fact that the paper is not replicable,
since the models and parameters used are not accessible,
places a question mark over the refereeing procedures used
for this paper by the journal Science. A paper that seeks to
place a procedure in the worst possible light, and refrains
from allowing others to check its results, is perhaps better
described as ideology than as science.


22. OECD, Biofuel Support Policies: An economic assessment. OECD, Paris
(2008).
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I provided an earlier criticism of Searchinger's hypothesis by Bruce E. Dale, University Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering, Michigan State University, here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=115&topic_id=184934


The Searchinger tract is not science. It could be called comic book science, if you were in a generous mood. But actually, it's dishonest, stilted hawking of a position dressed up (rather poorly) to look like an actual scientific study. It did get headlines and I guess that made it worthwhile since most people only read headlines (if that much, many prefer to listen to someone read the headlines to them on tv.) and form their impressions from that.

[JohnWxy]

8. MORE criticism of the Searchinger et al "study" - overstated land needed for substitution by 100%.

(uh-oh, the old trick of cheating on accounting for the Ethanol Co-Products):



http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x195719

[kristopher]

9. Comments on these "criticisms"

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
BERKELEY DAVIS IRVINE LOS ANGELES RIVERSIDE SAN DIEGO SAN FRANCISCO SANTA BARBARA SANTA CRUZ

July 3, 2008


Mary D. Nichols, Chairman
California Air Resources Board
Headquarters Building
1001 "I" Street
P.O. Box 2815
Sacramento, CA 95812


Dear Chairman Nichols,

We note with interest the letter dated June 24 from 27 colleagues urging you to
implement the Low Carbon Fuel Standard without reference to what they call “indirect impacts of renewable biofuels production.”

Its authors are especially concerned with what has come to be called the indirect
Land Use Change (iLUC) effects, whereby use of feedstocks grown on land that
would otherwise be used to grow food induces wild or uncultivated land to be
converted to food cultivation possibly after a series of steps involving different
crops. This process is mediated by both the international commodity prices for
foods as well as biofuels, and the land-use policies enacted by governments
around the world. The salience of this issue comes from the very large carbon
releases from soil and biomass that can occur when the land is cultivated and the
standing vegetation is burned or decays.

The authors of the 24 June letter recommend, in simplest terms, that the LCFS
be implemented for several years as though the global warming effect of iLUC
were zero, on grounds that “great uncertainties” exist about its magnitude and
about indirect global warming (GW) effects of fossil fuel use. We disagree with
this ‘free pass’ approach on several scientific, economic, and public policy
grounds.

We have been actively engaged in studying the life-cycle impacts of biofuels for
several yearsi, ii, including the development of the technical and policy analysis of the LCFS for the state of Californiaiii, and have been focused on the iLUC issue for several months, as has the USEPA and other teams around the world, and we strongly advise against the path recommended in the July 24 letter. While the science of iLUC impacts is evolving, zero is most certainly not the most likely or scientifically most soundly supported value, and we see no evidence that it will be in the foreseeable future.

It has long been suggested that CO2 emissions released from the conversion of
land could dominate the entire lifecycle GHG emissions of biofuelsiv,v,vi The
evidence that iLUC GW effects are large rests on economic models, including
those used to generate the peer-reviewed paper published in January, and
widely accepted estimates of the carbon stored in standing biomass in different
ecological zones around the world. The Searchinger et alvii paper is based on
projections from the FAPRI model developed at Iowa State University, along with
historical allocation of land use conversion to different agro-ecological zones.
The FAPRI model, the GTAP model and similar models are well established tools
that routinely contribute to informed policy decisions throughout the world. These
and other economic simulation models have helped policymakers understand the
likely land use changes of agricultural price, trade and environmental programs in
the United States and many other places. The Congressional Budget Office,
USDA, the WTO, OECD, the EU, the World Bank, the Chinese Academy of
Sciences and many other organizations use such models to analyze implications
of agricultural policy and changes in regulatory incentives similar to those under
discussion by CARB. Using these models as an input to life cycle analysis is well
within the scope of these models.

That said, of course economists continue to make progress with the development
and application of forward-looking simulation models. For example, economists
continue to gather and use better data for parameter estimates. And,
considerable progress is underway to refine the specific applications to LCA and
related greenhouse gas and climate change assessments. This research is
important and likely to be extremely useful over the next few months and years.

There is no scientifically respectable alternative way to predict how human
systems will respond to policy than to use what we know about the behavior of
economic systems, including (in this case) the international markets for energy,
food, and agricultural inputs including land.

So far no models, in particular no peer-reviewed models, have been advanced
that come up with values for iLUC that are significantly lower than those in the
Searchinger et al paper. Note that the current large values obtained for iLUC are
not revisions of conventionally accepted low values: the current studies are the
first time this issue has been explored in detail. We are expanding the library of
scientific estimates of iLUCviii; in particular, we have been using the state-of-the-
art GTAP model housed at Purdue University to produce forecasts with added
geographic and crop-focused detail and clarity of what kinds of land are
converted and where. We anticipate that we will have extensive results for a
variety of biofuels scenarios by the end of the summer. At present we can report
that we have found very similar GHG emission results to Searchinger’s for
ethanol from corn using this more sophisticated approach. We feel that this
approach is consistent with the use of ‘best science’ to assess the full life-cycle
impacts of fuel choices, be they biologically based or derived from fossil-fuel
resources.

This approach is in contrast to the arguments put forth in the letter “against” the
iLUC values currently being studied. In particular, we note that the fragmentary
history of corn exports and prices is almost entirely irrelevant to the marginal
effect of more bioethanol from food crop land, and in any case misleading as it
ignores, among other aspects, the near-complete emptying of the corn inventory
during the period discussed.

We are not only making better economic models of LUC but also explicitly
modeling the effect of the real uncertainties in the parameter values of these
models. With a stochastic version of the computational model used in the
Searchinger et al analysis we assign probability distributions to nine uncertain
variables and our results show that consideration of uncertainty in model
parameters does not qualitatively alter the conclusion that the global warming
intensity (GWI) of corn ethanol—even under the most GHG-efficient production
practices—exceeds that of gasoline. We show that the low end of a 95%
confidence interval around the mean LUC-related CO2 term is approximately 70 g CO2 per MJ, which doubles the life cycle GWI rating of typical US corn ethanol.
This analysis allows us to better understand the core question this discussion
addresses, which is: how likely is it that the iLUC effect is so small that food-
competitive biofuels are less GW-intensive than petroleum fuels?

Our judgment incorporates recognition that land use effects of fossil fuels need
to be compared to those of biofuels. Briefly, petroleum (with the important
exception of strip-mined oil sands and oil shale) affects tiny amounts of land
compared to biofuels per unit of energy obtained. Oil is extracted from open
water, from deserts, and in any case from very small land footprints. We are
making specific estimates of these land use effects and will have estimates this
fall.

We urge you to recognize that just because we are uncertain about the value of a
quantity, even over a fairly wide range, does not mean that we know nothing
about it. The authors of the June 24 letter do not appreciate that the option to
“not recognize iLUC” is not in fact available to ARB! Fuel in the LCFS will have a
value for iLUC attributed to it; the question for ARB is, does existing science (and
we strongly agree that as we learn more, policy should adapt if estimates
change) best justify a value of zero? This is what it would mean to omit an LUC
term, and our judgment is that the answer to this question is emphatically “no”.

It remains to consider whether ARB should impute a value on the low side of
current estimates as somehow “conservative”. This would imply that it would be
better for the planet to cause a given amount of GW by burning and decay of
standing vegetation than by using fossil fuels for transportation, a judgment that
seems to us completely without foundation. This is not a case of erring on a
“safe” side; being wrong here either way is equally bad for the climate.
Furthermore, mistakes and oversights are particularly difficult to rectify in the
fuels market once producers have invested money and land, developed
processes and markets. The history of corn ethanol shows how hard it is to have
both mandates and incentives changed.

Looking beyond climate change, an underestimate of iLUC is probably worse
than an overestimate since it would create incentives for overproduction of crop-
based biofuel. Ongoing research by our group into broad sustainability
considerationsix and water usex (reports to be finalized by mid-July), as well as a
growing body of research into the food price, biodiversity, and social effects of
biofuel production should lead ARB to be wary of over-incentivizing agricultural
biofuels. For example, our study shows that the volume of water consumed in
production of agricultural ethanol in California ranges from about 640 to over
1850 gal/gal ethanol depending upon the feedstock and the region. During this
period of severe water shortage in our state, creating incentives for this new
consumption should not be taken lightly.

There are places in the world where lands degraded through past unsustainable
agricultural practices may be improved through energy crop production with very
low net GW effect but these practices have not yet been modeled and further
research is definitely required, especially as regards alternative uses of the land.
These opportunities are important (as are biofuels from wastes, algae, and other
sources that do not compete with food for land) but the current discussion is
about ethanol from corn plants grown in the US. Note, in this context, that unless
the LUC effect is recognized and our best estimates used, it will be impossible to
distinguish GW-reducing biofuels from GW-aggravating ones.

There are also regulations and controls that might be implemented in places
where the wave of LUC effects comes to a halt that would reduce the LUC term,
but the modeling done to date describes what will happen and not what would
happen if the world were different. Implementing performance-based standards
that can be effectively applied is crucial to ensuring sustainable supplies from
anywhere the state may procure biofuels. The state should be careful not to
arbitrarily or unintentionally eliminate options for improving land and
environmental quality, but nor should we fail to appropriately include adequate
accounting mechanisms and estimates of iLUC effects.

Our past and ongoing work lend strong support to the path CARB is pursuing:
developing the life-cycle assessment methods to assess not only the greenhouse
gas impacts, but also the wider sustainability of our energy choices. CARB has
the opportunity and has demonstrated the leadership to use the best scientifically
based assessments — and we emphasize that we consider both technical
potential and economic impacts central to the process — of the iLUC term in any
fuel’s Average Fuel Carbon Intensity (AFCI), and be prepared to alter that
estimate as the science advances. Right now, that best estimate for additional
corn ethanol is between 100 and 200 gCO2eq/MJ.

The challenge that comes with opening up new technical, economic, social, and
environmental areas of not only inquiry but also action is of balancing further
study with implementation. We know today more than enough to move ahead
with a scientifically and socially responsible LCFS. Further work is needed, but
this can not be used as an excuse to permit irresponsible ventures to gain a
foothold when the science exists today to make more informed choices.


Sincerely (in alphabetical order),

Mark A. Delucchi
Research Scientist
Institute of Transportation Studies
University of California, Davis

Kevin Fingerman
Ph.D. Student
Energy and Resources Group
University of California, Berkeley

W.Michael Griffin
Research Scientist and Executive Director
Green Design Institute
Engineering and Public Policy and Tepper School of Business
Carnegie Mellon University

Thomas W. Hertel
Distinguished Professor and Executive Director
Center for Global Trade Analysis
Department of Agricultural Economics
Purdue University

Arpad Horvath
Associate Professor
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
University of California, Berkeley

Andrew Jones
Ph.D. Student
Energy and Resources Group
University of California, Berkeley
p. 6 of 8

Daniel M. Kammen
Class of 1935 Distinguished Professor of Energy
Energy and Resources Group and Goldman School of Public Policy
University of California, Berkeley

Alissa Kendall
Assistant Professor
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
University of California, Davis

Christopher R. Knittel
Professor in the Department of Economics
University of California, Davis

Hyunok Lee
Research Economist
Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics
University of California, Davis

H. Scott Matthews
Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering/Engineering and
Public Policy
Research Director, Green Design Institute
Carnegie Mellon University

Michael O’Hare
Professor of Public Policy
Goldman School of Public Policy
University of California, Berkeley

Richard Plevin
Ph.D. Student
Energy and Resources Group
University of California, Berkeley

Lee Schipper
Visiting Scholar, UCTC
University of California Transportation Center

Peter V. Schwartz
Associate Professor
Physics Department
California Polytechnic State University
San Luis Obispo, California 93407

Sabrina Spatari
Visiting Scholar
Energy and Resources Group
University of California, Berkeley

Daniel Sumner
Frank H. Buck, Jr. Professor
Director, University of California Agricultural Issues Center
University of California, Davis

Margaret S. Torn
Program Head, Climate and Carbon Science Program, Berkeley Lab
Adjunct Associate Professor, Energy and Resources Group, University of
California, Berkeley

Sonia Yeh
Research Scientist
Institute of Transportation Studies
University of California, Davis

[JohnWxy]

11. The reader will please note that the tract pasted in #9 is NOT a response to criticism of

Batman's...er, Searchinger's "study" methodology .. referenced in either cmt. #7 or #8. it is a response to a one or two page letter signed by over 100 PhDs advising Calif. Gov Schwarzeneggar that formulating policy and regulations on fuels, bio or petroleum must be based on science. No matter how intensely the individuals who signed the letter in #9 may FEEL about there beliefs, policy must be based on scientifically based conclusions. To do otherwise can actaully do harm.

I posted this letter here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x194946

"There is no question that global deforestation is a problem, and that indirect effects must be looked at very carefully to ensure that future fuels dramatically reduce GHG emissions without unintended consequences. The scientific community is actively seeking ways to mitigate deforestation, enhance efficient land use, feed the poor and malnourished and reduce global warming. Because of the complex and important issues involved, it is critical that we rely on science-based decision-making to properly determine and evaluate the indirect effects of all fuels, as well as any predicted changes in agricultural and forestry practices. In a general sense, it is worth noting that most primary forest deforestation is currently occurring in places like Brazil, Indonesia and Russia as a direct result of logging, cattle ranching and subsistence farming.

More than 20 scientists wrote to the ARB in June 2008 suggesting that more time and analysis is required to truly understand the iLUC effect of biofuels. In addition to iLUC, we know very little about the indirect effects of other fuels, and therefore cannot establish a proper relative value for indirect effects among the various compliance fuels and petroleum under the LCFS. In consideration of this and other rulemaking activities and research conducted since June 2008, we, the undersigned 111 scientists, continue to believe that the enforcement of any indirect effect, including iLUC, is highly premature at this time, based on the following two principles:

1) The Science Is Far Too Limited and Uncertain For Regulatory Enforcement

2) Indirect Effects Are Often Misunderstood And Should Not Be Enforced Selectively"

There is more to the letter, and no, that was not a typo. Over 100 PhDs signed this letter:

Sincerely,
Blake A. Simmons, Ph.D.
Vice-President, Deconstruction Division
Joint BioEnergy Institute
Manager, Biomass Science and Conversion Technology
Sandia National Laboratories

Jay D. Keasling, Ph.D.
Director
Physical Biosciences Division
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Hubbard Howe Distinguished Professor of Biochemical Engineering
Departments of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering
University of California, Berkeley
Chief Executive Officer
Joint BioEnergy Institute

Harvey W. Blanch, Ph.D.
Chief Science and Technology Officer
Joint BioEnergy Institute
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Member, National Academy of Engineering
Merck Professor of Chemical Engineering
University of California, Berkeley


Robert B. Goldberg, Ph.D.
Distinguished HHMI University Professor &
Member, National Academy of Sciences
Department of Cell, Developmental, & Molecular Biology
University of California, Los Angeles

Pam Ronald, Ph.D.
Vice-President, Feedstocks Division
Joint BioEnergy Institute
Department of Plant Pathology
University of California, Davis

Paul D. Adams, Ph.D.
Deputy Division Director, Physical Biosciences Division,
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Adjunct Professor, Department of Bioengineering, U.C. Berkeley
Vice President for Technology, the Joint BioEnergy Institute
Head, Berkeley Center for Structural Biology

Bruce E. Dale, Ph. D.
Distinguished University Professor
Dept. of Chemical Engineering & Materials Science
Michigan State University

Charles E. Wyman, Ph.D.
Ford Motor Company Chair in Environmental Engineering Center for Environmental Research and Technology (CE-CERT)
Professor of Chemical and Environmental Engineering Bourns College of Engineering
University of California, Riverside

Alvin J.M. Smucker, Ph.D.
Professor of Soil Biophysics
MSU Distinguished Faculty
Michigan State University

Greg Stephanopoulos, Ph.D.
W.H. Dow Professor of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology
Department of Chemical Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Sharon Shoemaker, Ph.D.
Director
California Institute for Food and Agriculture Research
University of California, Davis


Stephen R. Kaffka, Ph.D.
Extension Agronomist
Department of Plant Sciences
University of California, Davis

Terry Hazen, Ph.D.
Director of Microbial Communities
Joint BioEnergy Institute
Scientist/Department Head
Ecology Department
Earth Sciences Division
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Lonnie O. Ingram, Ph.D.
Director, Florida Center for Renewable Chemicals and Fuels
Dept. of Microbiology and Cell Science
University of Florida

George W. Huber, Ph.D.
Armstrong Professional Development Professor
Department of Chemical Engineering
University of Massachusetts

Kenneth G. Cassman, Ph.D.
Director, Nebraska Center for Energy Science Research
Heuermann Professor of Agronomy
University of Nebraska, Lincoln

Om Parkash (Dhankher), Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Plant, Soil and Insect Sciences
University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Cole Gustafson, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Agribusiness and Applied Economics
North Dakota State University

Robert C. Brown, Ph.D.
Anson Martson Distinguished Professor in Engineering
Gary and Donna Hoover Chair in Mechanical Engineering Professor, Mechanical Engineering, Chemical and Biological Engineering, and Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering Director, Bioeconomy Institute Director, Center for Sustainable Environmental Technologies
Iowa State University


John Ralph, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Biochemistry and Biological Systems Engineering
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Daniel G. De La Torre Ugarte, Ph.D.
Professor, Agricultural Policy Analysis Center
Department of Agricultural Economics
The University of Tennessee

Michael A. Henson, Ph.D.
Co-Director
Institute for Massachusetts Biofuels Research (TIMBR)
University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Danny J. Schnell, Ph.D.
Professor and Head
Dept. of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Jeffrey L. Blanchard, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Microbiology
Morrill Science Center
University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Y-H Percival Zhang, Ph.D.
Biological Systems Engineering Department
Virginia Tech University

Venkatesh Balan, Ph.D.,
Assistant Professor
Department of Chemical Engineering and Material Science
Michigan State University

Gemma Reguera, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics
Michigan State University
Wayne R. Curtis, Ph.D.
Professor of Chemical Engineering
Penn State University

James C. Liao, Ph.D.
Chancellor's Professor
Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
University of California, Los Angeles


Brian G. Fox, Ph.D.
Marvin Johnson Professor of Fermentation Biochemistry
Department of Biochemistry
Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center
University of Wisconsin

Robert Landick, Ph.D.
Dept. of Biochemistry
Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison

Prof. dr. ir. Christian V. Stevens
Professor Chemical Modification of Renewable Resources
Faculty of Bioscience Engineering
Director of the Center of Renewable Resources
Ghent University, Belgium

Alexander J. Malkin, Ph.D.
Scientific Capability Leader for BioNanoSciences
Physical and Life Sciences Directorate
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Dennis J. Miller, Ph.D.
Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Michigan State University

David Keating, Ph.D.
Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center
University of Wisconsin-Madison

Susan Leschine, Ph.D.
Professor
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Qteros, Inc.

David T. Damery, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Dept. of Natural Resources Conservation
University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Kenneth Keegstra, Ph.D.
University Distinguished Professor
Department of Plant Biology
Michigan State University


Tobias I. Baskin, Ph.D.
Biology Department
University of Massachusetts

Christopher M. Saffron, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Dept. of Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering
Dept. of Forestry
Michigan State University

Emily Heaton, Ph.D.
Asst. Prof. of Agronomy
Iowa State University

Kurt D. Thelen, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Dept. of Crop & Soil Sciences
Michigan State University

Bin Yang, Ph.D.
Associate Research Engineer
Bourns College of Engineering
Center for Environmental Research and Technology (CE-CERT)
University of California, Riverside

Andrea Festuccia, Ph.D.
Professor
University of Rome-Italy

Francesca del Vecchio, Ph.D.
Professor Cambridge University
St. John Biochemistry Department
Cambridge, UK

David Shonnard, Ph.D.
Department of Chemical Engineering
Michigan Technological University

R. Mark Worden, Ph.D. Professor
Dept. of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Michigan State University

Satish Joshi, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Agricultural Economics
Michigan State University

Timothy Volk, Ph.D.
Senior Research Associate
346 Illick Hall
Faculty of Forest and Natural Resources Management
SUNY-ESF

Henrik Scheller, Ph.D.
Director of Plant Cell Wall Biosynthesis
Joint BioEnergy Institute
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Joshua L. Heazlewood, Ph.D.
Director of Systems Biology
Joint BioEnergy Institute
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Dominique Loque, Ph.D.
Director of Cell Wall Engineering
Joint BioEnergy Institute
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

David A. Grantz, Ph.D.
Director, University of California Kearney Agricultural Center
Plant Physiologist and Extension Air Quality Specialist Department of Botany and Plant Sciences and Air Pollution Research Center University of California at Riverside

Rajat Sapra, Ph.D.
Director of Enzyme Engineering
Joint BioEnergy Institute
Biomass Science and Conversion Technology
Sandia National Laboratories

Masood Hadi, Ph.D.
Director of High-Throughput Sample Prep
Joint BioEnergy Institute
Biomass Science and Conversion Technology
Sandia National Laboratories

Swapnil Chhabra, Ph.D.
Director of Host Engineering
Joint BioEnergy Institute
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Seema Singh, Ph.D.
Director of Dynamic Studies of Biomass Pretreatment
Joint BioEnergy Institute
Biomass Science and Conversion Technology
Sandia National Laboratories

Bradley Holmes, Ph.D.
Director of Biomass Pretreatment and Process Engineering
Joint BioEnergy Institute
Biomass Science and Conversion Technology
Sandia National Laboratories

Manfred Auer, Ph.D.
Director Physical Analysis
Joint BioEnergy Institute
Physical Biosciences Division
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Phil Hugenholtz, Ph.D.
Senior Scientist
Joint BioEnergy Institute
Joint Genome Institute
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Chris Petzold, Ph.D.
Scientist
Joint BioEnergy Institute
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Steven Singer, Ph.D.
Scientist
Joint BioEnergy Institute
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Michael Thelen, Ph.D.
Senior Scientist
Joint BioEnergy Institute
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
11
David A. Grantz, Ph.D.
Director, University of California Kearney Agricultural Center
Plant Physiologist and Extension Air Quality Specialist Department of Botany and Plant Sciences and Air Pollution Research Center University of California at Riverside

David Reichmuth, Ph.D.
Scientist, Sandia National Laboratories

Amy J. Powell, Ph.D.
Scientist, Department of Computational Biology
Sandia National Laboratories

Anthe George, Ph.D.
Post-doctoral Fellow
Joint BioEnergy Institute
Biomass Science and Conversion Technology
Sandia National Laboratories

Özgül Persil Çetinkol
Post-doctoral Fellow
Joint BioEnergy Institute
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Supratim Datta, Ph.D.
Post-doctoral Fellow
Joint BioEnergy Institute
Biomass Science and Conversion Technology
Sandia National Laboratories

Zhiwei Chen, Ph.D.
Post-doctoral Fellow
Joint BioEnergy Institute
Biomass Science and Conversion Technology
Sandia National Laboratories

Joshua Park, Ph.D.
Post-doctoral Fellow
Joint BioEnergy Institute
Biomass Science and Conversion Technology
Sandia National Laboratories

Chenlin Li, Ph.D.
Post-doctoral Fellow
Joint BioEnergy Institute
Biomass Science and Conversion Technology
Sandia National Laboratories
12
Hanbin Liu, Ph.D.
Post-doctoral Fellow
Joint BioEnergy Institute
Biomass Science and Conversion Technology
Sandia National Laboratories

Richard Hamilton, Ph.D.
Chief Executive Officer
Ceres, Inc.

Richard B. Flavell, Ph.D.
Chief Scientific Officer
Ceres, Inc.

Robert J. Wooley, Ph.D., P.E.
Director, Process Engineering
Abengoa

Tim Eggeman, Ph.D., P.E.
Chief Technology Officer, Founder
ZeaChem Inc.

Dan W. Verser, Ph.D.
Co-Founder
EVP R&D
ZeaChem Inc

José Goldemberg, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus University of São Paulo
São Paulo, Brazil and Former Secretary for the Environment

Neal Gutterson, Ph.D.
President and CEO
Mendel Biotechnology Inc

James Zhang, PhD
VP of Tech Acquisition and Alliances
Mendel Biotechnology Inc

Mark D. Stowers, Ph.D.
Vice President, Research and Development
POET
13
Steen Skjold-Jørgensen, Ph.D.
Vice-President of Biofuels R&D
Novozymes North America, Inc.

Claus Fuglsang, Ph.D.
Senior Director of Bioenergy R&D
Novozymes, Inc.

John Pierce, Ph.D.
Vice President-Technology, DuPont Applied BioSciences &
Director, Biochemical Sciences and Engineering
E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company, Inc.

Mike Arbige, Ph.D.
SVP Technology Genencor,
a Danisco Division

Joe Skurla , Ph.D.
President, DuPont Danisco Cellulosic Ethanol

David Mead, Ph.D.
CEO, Lucigen Corporation

Bernie Steele, Ph.D.
Director, Operations
MBI International

Stephen del Cardayre, Ph.D.
Vice President, Research and Development
LS9, Inc.

Douglas E. Feldman, Ph.D.
Corporate Development
LS9, Inc.

Matt Carr, Ph.D.
Director, Policy
Industrial and Environmental Section
Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO)

R. Michael Raab, Ph.D.
President
Agrivida, Inc.

Philip Lessard, Ph.D.
Senior Scientist
Agrivida, Inc.

Jeremy Johnson, Ph.D.
Co-Founder
Agrivida, Inc.

Humberto de la Vega, Ph.D.
Senior Scientist
Agrivida, Inc.

David Morris, Ph.D.
Vice-President
Institute for Local Self Reliance (ILSR)

Gregory Luli, Ph.D.
Vice-President, Research
Verenium Corporation

Kevin A. Gray, Ph.D.
Sr. Director, Biofuels R&D
Verenium Corporation

Gregory Powers, Ph.D.
Executive VP, Research & Development
Verenium Corporation

Keith A. Krutz, Ph.D.
Vice-President, Core Technologies
Verenium Corporation

Nelson R. Barton, Ph.D.
Vice-President, Research and Development
Verenium Corporation

Hiroshi Morihara, Ph.D.
Chairman of HM3 Ethanol

Kulinda Davis, Ph.D.
Director of Product Development
Sapphire Energy

Neal Briggi, Ph.D.
Global Head of Enzymes
Syngenta Biotechnology Inc.
15
Jeffrey Miano, Ph.D.
Global Business Director Biomass
Syngenta Biotechnology, Inc.

Ian Jepson, Ph.D.
Head of Enzyme R&D
Syngenta Biotechnology Inc

Patrick B. Smith, Ph.D.
Consultant, Renewable Industrial Chemicals
Archer Daniels Midland Research

Terry Stone, Ph.D.
Senior Manager, Regulatory Affairs
Syngenta Biotechnology, Inc.

Ramnik Singh, Ph.D.
Director, Cellulosic Processing & Pretreatment
BioEnergy International

Cenan Ozmeral, Ph.D.
SVP and General Manager
BioEnergy International

Cary Veith, Ph.D.
Vice-President
BioEnergy International





Now regarding the idea that additional land devoted to growing corn for ethanol and whether it makes sense or has been demonstrated to be true or rather that the available facts contradict this theory I refer the reader to the following report:

excerpts from report written by

Keith Kline, Virginia H. Dale, Russell Lee, and Paul Leiby
Center for BioEnergy Sustainability
Oak Ridge National Laboratory

http://www.geocities.com/jwalkerxy/ILUC_Oak_Ridge.pdf



Concerns over induced deforestation are
based on a theory of land displacement that is
not supported by data. U.S. ethanol
production shot up by more than 3 billion
gallons (150%) between 2001 and 2006, and
corn production increased 11%, while total
U.S. harvested cropland fell by about 2% in
the same period. Indeed, the harvested area
for “coarse grains” fell by 4% as corn, with an
average yield of 150 bushels per acre,
replaced other feed grains such as sorghum
(averaging 60 bushels per acre). Such
statistics defy modeling projections by
demonstrating an ability to supply feedstock
to a burgeoning ethanol industry while
simultaneously maintaining exports and using
substantially less land. So although models
may assume that increased use of U.S. land
for biofuels will lead to more land being
cleared for agriculture in other parts of the
world, evidence is lacking to support those
claims.


Second, there is little evidence that biofuels
cause deforestation, and much evidence for
alternative causes. Recent scientific papers
that blame biofuels for deforestation are based
on models that presume new land conversion
can be simulated as a predominantly marketdriven
choice. The models assume land is a
privately owned asset managed in response to
global price signals within a stable rule-based
economy — perhaps a reasonable assumption
for developed nations.

However, this scenario is far from the
reality in the smoke-filled frontier zones of
deforestation in less developed countries,
where the models assume biofuel-induced
land conversion takes place...
~~
The causes of deforestation have been
extensively studied, and it is clear from the
empirical evidence that forces other than
biofuel use are responsible for the trends of
increasing forest loss in the tropics.
~~
~~
Initial clearing in the tropics is often driven
more by waves of illegitimate land
speculation than agricultural production.
(more)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------


will post more. out of time now._JW

[kristopher]

10. AND

RESPONSE TO NEW FUELS ALLIANCE AND DOE ANALYSTS CRITICISMS
OF SCIENCE STUDIES OF GREENHOUSE GASES AND BIOFUELS

Timothy D. Searchinger ([email protected])
Visiting Scholar and Lecturer in Public and International Affairs, Princeton University;
Transatlantic Fellow, The German Marshall Fund of the United States
(February 26, 2008)

The New Fuels Alliance (NFA) and two biofuel analysts at the Department of
Energy (Michael Wang and Zia Haq) have issued press releases or open letters criticizing
new studies in Science magazine incorporating land use change into the greenhouse gas
calculations of biofuels. I was lead author of the study, “Use of U.S. Croplands for
Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Land Use Change.” While further
research could certainly refine our study, these criticisms are off the mark.

SUMMARY

Misrepresentations of the Study

1. Claim: The study assumes no increases in crop yields.
Answer: The study assumes that yields both in the U.S.
and the rest of the world will continue to increase at
present trends based on detailed analysis.

2. Claim: The study assumes that all new cropland conversion will use pristine
lands, a worst case scenario.
Answer: The study calculates that new cropland conversion
will come from a wide variety of land uses, many far from pristine, including many re-
growing forests and even many existing croplands that would revert to grassland or forest
but for increased biofuel use. More generally, the study incorporates many beneficial
assumptions for biofuels, including an assumption that converting grassland now used for
livestock forage will not trigger any deforestation to replace that forage, and that no new
croplands will use wetlands except in Southeast Asia. Overall, there are at least as many
reasons to believe estimated emissions from land use change are too low as too high.

3. Claim: The analysis is irrelevant because it calculates emissions from a far
higher use of corn-ethanol that mandated under the most recent Energy Bill.
Answer: The study calculates a rate of emissions from each gallon of corn ethanol, not a
total level of emissions. This rate varies somewhat but tells the same story at any level
of ethanol just as automobile mileage does not greatly change between a car’s first 25,000
miles and the next. Prices could also push corn ethanol well above the mandated minimum level.

4. Claim: The study incorrectly predicts that even at today’s corn ethanol level,
U.S. corn exports would decline by 62% compared to the past.
Answer: The study actually predicts that corn experts would decline by 62% only at 30 billion
gallons of corn ethanol, four times today’s ethanol level, and not in comparison to existing
exports but only in comparison to what they would otherwise by in 2016.


Economic and Related Errors:

5. Claim: Because U.S. corn exports have slightly increased this year, corn
ethanol is not having any impact on exports or world grain production.
Answer: To supply ethanol, the U.S. planted 20% more corn acres this year than in 2004,
switching acres from soybeans, wheat and cotton. Ethanol had major impacts on exports through
reductions in soybeans, and even so, corn and soybean exports this year relied on large
reductions in domestic stocks, which can only continue temporarily.

6. Claim: The study gave insufficient credit to distillers’ grains, a feed by-
product of corn ethanol, because the study does not credit their increased protein content.
Answer: Distillers grains have some proteins but not all, and their use by livestock is
complex and varies by livestock type. Focusing only on energy or protein would be
simplistic, and the study used an elaborate analysis of livestock uses that is also
consistent with USDA economic analysis.

7. Claim: The study is one-sided because it omits land use emissions from oil
production.
Answer: They are likely to be very small per gallon of gasoline.

Logical Errors:

8. Claims: The study is wrong because many factors influence deforestation,
because some activities abroad may reduce deforestation rates and because much larger
yield increases are possible and could make more land available for biofuels.
Answer: It is true that many factors influence deforestation, and dramatic increases in yields
or new government policies could reduce the world’s deforestation overall. But these factors
would change the world with or without biofuels – in other words, they would change the
baseline -- and it is not proper to attribute to biofuels either the benefits or harms from
independent factors. Each acre of biofuels that uses productive cropland still leads to
more deforestation and related land use changes.

9. Claim: By incorporating land use change, the study arbitrarily incorporates
just one of many possible additional factors that influence greenhouse gas effects of
biofuels.
Answer: Prior studies all assign to biofuels the benefit of using land to take
carbon out of the atmosphere by growing feedstocks, but fail to acknowledge that using
land in this way has carbon costs because it sacrifices other carbon benefits of land. Our
study simply rounds out an otherwise one-sided accounting of the use of land.

True Statements Consistent with Study

Claims: Different feedstocks using different lands and different refining
efficiency could improve greenhouse gas effects.
Answer: True, as the paper states, but corn ethanol would remain a net source of
greenhouse gas emissions over 30 years even with widely varying assumptions.
The most promising alternatives would use waste products or possibly generate
high volumes of biomass on unproductive lands.

RESPONSES TO NEW FUELS ALLIANCE

1. The Greenhouse Gas Emissions Per Gallon of Ethanol Remain Comparable at
Any Level of Ethanol.

NFA claims that the indirect land use study has no real significance for existing,
or contemplated, corn-based ethanol because the study is based on an analysis of an
expansion in ethanol from 15 to 30 billion gallons (56 to 111 billion liters), which is
much larger than that now contemplated by the new U.S. Energy Bill.

This criticism could be valid if the study focused on the total increase in
emissions from expected increases in corn-based ethanol. Obviously, total emissions
would be wrong if based on an excessive amount of ethanol. But the study focuses on the
rate of emissions for ethanol, in other words, the level of greenhouse gas emissions per
gallon (unit of energy) of ethanol. A car that gets 25 miles to the gallon is likely to get
roughly the same mileage when driven the first 25,000 miles as the next 25,000 miles.
Similarly, the rate of emissions from land-use change will be comparable.

The NFA’s criticism could also be valid if the agricultural model used by the
study calculated that more land use change would occur per gallon of ethanol at higher
levels of ethanol than at lower levels. In that event, the study would attribute to today’s
ethanol the greater land-use change likely with tomorrow’s ethanol. (Analogously, an
analysis might calculate than an older car burns more gas as it drives more miles than a
younger car.) But the agricultural analysis used for our study does no such thing. The
results vary somewhat at different levels of ethanol but tell a comparable story. For
example, the study explains that at 22 billion gallons of ethanol, emissions from land use
change per gallon of ethanol would be 10% less.

We also examined impacts in 2011 that would result from increases in corn
ethanol from 14,830 billion gallons to 16,631 billion gallons. We analyzed this increase
because it was the first time baseline conditions and higher corn ethanol scenarios
differed by more than 1 billion gallons in analyses performed by CARD based on
different oil prices. In this scenario, land use change emissions per gallon were more
than 30% higher than in the higher ethanol scenario we analyzed for the study. In this
lower ethanol scenario, proportionately more of the increase in U.S. corn acres occurs
through reduced plantings of wheat rather than soybeans. When countries replace wheat
acres, they need more proportionately more land than when they replace U.S. soybean
acres because wheat acres in many foreign countries are proportionately lower than U.S.
yields although the acres converted tend to be somewhat less carbon rich. This result
shows that, under our model, different predictions about the kinds of crop responses to
increased ethanol will have somewhat different results, but they will not significantly
change the overall picture.

Why did the study analyze an increase from 15 to 30 billion gallons by 2016?
This analysis, completed before Congress passed the 2007 Energy Independence and
Security Act, was based on projections that corn ethanol would rise to 30 billion gallons
if the price of gasoline remains high, existing tax credits remain in place, and cars are
adjusted to be able to burn more than 10% ethanol. Contrary to common understanding,
while the Energy Bill has the practical effect of requiring close to 15 billion gallons of
corn ethanol, it does not prohibit corn ethanol above 15 billion gallons. The new law
might discourage those increases in corn ethanol because it requires that gasoline
distributors purchase many other biofuels, and distributors might resist purchasing both
them and even more corn ethanol. But if gasoline prices remain high and existing tax
credits remain in effect, corn ethanol could still be cheaper than gasoline and could
therefore rise well above 15 billion gallons per year.

It is hard to determine exactly what level of corn ethanol to analyze, and results
will also vary depending on increased demands for other biofuels that also use cropland.
Even so, the basic outcome will not significantly vary.


2. The Land Use Change Emissions for Fossil Fuels Are Very Small By
Comparison with Biofuels

The NFA also criticizes the studies on the grounds that they do not calculate the
emissions from land-use change for fossil fuels and therefore are unfair. However, the
amount of land used to produce a gallon of gasoline is extremely small — according to
some energy experts we have quickly consulted, it is less than 1% off the amount of land
used to produce a gallon-equivalent of ethanol. And many oil-drilling lands, such as
desert, support little carbon. Much of the world’s oil is either produced in deserts or
offshore or on land that still remains in productive agricultural use. Because the effect of
oil production on emissions from land use change is small, it is reasonable to omit it.
Research into the land use implications of fossil fuel are worthwhile but not everything
can be included in a single research article.

3. The Study is Far From a Worst Case Scenario. Actual Emissions Could be
Lower But Are More Likely Higher.

The NFA claims for a variety of reasons that the study sets out a worst-case
scenario. In addition to other reasons for this claim discussed above, each of the other
reasons offered fails to accurately present the basic workings of the study.

First, the NFA claims that the study simply assumes that each acre diverted to
ethanol results in one acre planted abroad. In fact, the study calculates, based on a
sophisticated agricultural model, that worldwide only around 84% of an acre is planted to
replace each acre diverted to grow corn for ethanol. Moreover, far less than 84% of the
diverted grain is replaced. The number of newly planted acres remains that high only
because foreign agricultural yields generally cannot match those in the United States

The NFA implies that actual demand elasticities for grains should be higher than
calculated by the model. In simple language, that means people would reduce their food
consumption as crop prices rise even more than our study projects. Bigger reductions in
food consumption would reduce the magnitude of adverse greenhouse gas effects, but at
the expense of poorer nutrition for the world’s poor. For a good discussion of this issue,
see the May/June 2007 article in Foreign Affairs by C. Ford Runge and Ben Senauer,
“How Biofuels Could Starve the Poor.”

The NFA also claims that the study assumes all newly planted land converts
pristine ecosystems. To the contrary, the study calculates that many of the “new”
cropland acres are actually acres of existing cropland in Europe and the former Soviet
Union that would otherwise leave crop production. The study accordingly assumes that
keeping these lands in crop production causes no immediate release of carbon at all. But
by keeping these lands in crop production, biofuel demand keeps those lands from
reverting to grassland and forest, which would sequester carbon over 30 years. For this
reason, there is a large opportunity cost to biofuel production, even if the lands they cause
to be in crop production are far from pristine. The study similarly concludes that many of
the forests converted to crop production because of biofuels are non-pristine young
forests. Their carbon losses are also lower, but converting them also foregoes the carbon
benefits of their continued growth. And overall, the study calculates a broad mix of
different kinds of habitats converted to cropland, with very different carbon effects,
reflecting the real experience in the 1990s. In short, the NFA misunderstands the study's
findings and also fails to realize that converting non-pristine lands can also have high
carbon costs.

The NFA also criticizes the study for assuming that biofuels will not be produced
on marginal lands, and it is true that the study’s analysis of corn ethanol assumes that it
will be produced on land of average productivity. If corn for ethanol were produced on
lands of lower productivity, each acre diverted would generate less land use change. But
each acre would also produce less ethanol, and the emissions per gallon would remain
comparable. As a whole, because rational farmers tend to put the most productive land
into use first, new lands are likely to be less productive than today’ average, which
played a role in our study. (As a separate matter, our paper points out that if biomass can
be generated productively on marginal lands, there could be opportunities for greenhouse
gas benefits.)

Although these criticisms are invalid, any estimates of the kind in our study
cannot be precise, and could be either high or low. In our view, our estimate could be too
high because farmers could be more successful in boosting yields in specific response to
higher ethanol-related prices than we assume. These effects are extremely hard to study.
However, the study also made many assumptions that probably make its result too low.

i) The study assumed no conversion of wetlands outside of Southeast Asia. Many
of the world’s best croplands are former wetlands, and they often release large
amounts of carbon when drained for agriculture.

ii) Agricultural production releases nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas. There
are significant reasons to believe that the traditional estimates of nitrous oxide
production incorporated into our results are too low. P.J. Crutzen et al., Atmos.
Chem. Phys. Discuss. 7:11191-11205 (2007).

iii) Around half of the new croplands according to our estimate are converted
from grasslands, nearly all of which are probably grazed today. Converting those
grasslands to cropland sacrifices the livestock forage produced on them. Our
study assumed that there would be no further land-use change – such as forest
clearing – to replace this forage. (This assumption causes our estimates to be too
low, but we disregarded this impact because there is no accepted model for
calculating these effects.)

iv) Finally, there is substantial evidence that converting some rainforest has a
drying effect on adjacent rainforests, making them more prone to fire. Our
analysis left out this effect as well. These and other effects, such as changes in
albedo (surface reflectivity) of converted lands, deserve further study, but
generally suggest a very cautious approach to any contemplated expansion of land
use for biofuel production.

4. The study’s basic causal chain is straightforward, even though the details
reflect sophisticated modeling.

The NFA claims that the basic logic of the study is in fact highly speculative and
attenuated. There is nothing speculative about global commodities markets – more
demand means higher prices, which leads to greater production. This is exactly what
we’ve seen in the corn market for the last several years. The study authors view the basic
causal chain to be straightforward.

5. Land Use Effects Are Intrinsic to the Calculations for Biofuels But Have Been
Previously Left Out

The NFA finally claims that the studies arbitrarily decide to calculate greenhouse
gas emissions from land-use change, which are only some of the many possible indirect
effects of biofuels and fossil fuels. While any life-cycle analysis of a fuel has to place
some limits on what it calculates, any proper life-cycle analysis has to focus at least on
the major sources of greenhouse gas emissions. According to our analysis, land-use
change is the single largest source of emissions for corn-based ethanol and probably any
other biofuels grown on cropland. It is a large, and real effect and must be considered in
any accurate accounting.

More precisely, our analysis only provides a more complete view of land use
effects that are otherwise incorporated into greenhouse gas studies in a one-sided way.
Previous analyses attribute greenhouse gas reductions to biofuels because they attribute
to the biofuel the carbon out taken out of the atmosphere by growing crops (or other
feedstocks). For most biofuels, that requires land, and is in reality a land-use effect, but it
is a one-sided accounting of the land-use effect. Any calculation that assigns biofuels the
carbon benefits of using land to grow them must also deduct the carbon costs of that land-
use decision. If not used for biofuels, land would already take carbon out of the
atmosphere and continuing to store carbon previously removed, and much of this benefit
is lost by using the land to produce biofuels. If you want to calculate the carbon benefit
of using land for biofuels, you have to count the carbon cost.

Put another way, previous analyses have looked at land used for biofuels as a
carbon free asset. It is not. These analyses were equivalent to calculating the profit from
farming, which requires cropland, without factoring in the rental cost of the land.

SIGNIFICANCE OF YIELD IMPROVEMENTS

Our study assumes that yields in each country would continue to increase
according to present growth trends. Beyond the NFA press release, other critics claim
that yield increases could grow even more, either in the U.S. or worldwide, which could
free up additional lands from food production for biofuels, avoiding the need to convert
pristine ecosystems. Higher yield increases would have enormous environmental
benefits, but this argument mostly confuses changes to baseline conditions – the way the
world looks without more biofuels – and the incremental effect of more biofuels.

If the world can dramatically improves agricultural yields beyond existing trends,
less additional forest and grassland will be converted to cropland. That would obviously
be good for global warming because it would decrease the total amount of land
conversion. But reducing the amount of deforestation overall does not by itself affect the
amount of additional deforestation for each gallon of ethanol. Even in the unlikely event
that the world’s farmers could boost increases so high that the need for world cropland
declines even with a higher population, each additional gallon of ethanol would still
preclude some amount of cropland from reverting to forest or grassland.

Future yield increases above recent trends could alter the incremental affects of
biofuels but only in more modest ways. If U.S. corn yields grow faster than current
trends predict and reach 189 bushels/acre instead of 172 bushels per acre in 2015,
emissions from land-use change would decline by 10% because less land would be
diverted to produce each acre of corn ethanol. That would not significantly alter our
conclusion.

In addition, ethanol itself will spur price increases that could spur additional yield
increases beyond those that would occur without ethanol as farmers invest in more
irrigation, drainage and fertilizer. Unlike general yield effects, large yield increases
spurred by ethanol itself to replace diverted grain could significantly reduce land
conversion. In effect, in response to higher prices, farmers will increase production both
by plowing up more land and by trying harder to boost yields on existing land, and the
relative cost and ease of doing each will determine how much of which occurs. As
discussed in our study, there are also countervailing forces (like the fact that expansion of
corn production outside of the corn belt will involve lower yields), and it is extremely
hard to estimate these effects. For this reason, we looked at alternative scenarios in our
sensitivity analysis. Even if higher prices due to ethanol boosted yields enough to replace
one half of diverted grain, the pay-back period for corn ethanol would still last 84 years.


RESPONSE TO WANG AND HAQ
The public letter from Wang and Haq repeats some of the errors of the NFA press
release and makes additional factual and logical errors.

Scale of Ethanol: Wang and Haq repeat the claim that the study is flawed because
it analyzes the wrong scale of corn ethanol. As discussed above, the study focuses on
the amount of land use change per gallon, or per mile driven, with ethanol, and that rate
will remain comparable at different analyzed levels of ethanol, and probably increases at
lower ethanol levels.

Corn Yield: Wang and Haq complain that our study “used a constant corn yield,”
and did not factor in rising yields. As our study states: “Our analysis assumes that
present growth trends in yields continue.”1 Using the predictions of the Food and
Agricultural Policy Research Institute, the most authoritative source of information on
this subject, the study incorporated rising yields not just for corn but for all world crops,
even varying those rises in yields by country and by region of the United States. In fact,
our projected yields of 172 bushels per acre in 2015 exceed those of 166 bu/acre used by
Wang in his GREET model. In any event, even higher corn yields would only modestly
affect our results, as discussed above.

Our Study’s Export Predictions: Wang and Haq claim that our study has already
proven false because it ”maintains that the United States has already experienced a 62%
reduction in corn exports,” and that does not occur. The study makes no such claim. It
actually finds that an increase in corn ethanol from 15 to 30 billion gallons by 2016
would reduce corn exports by 62% compared to otherwise existing export levels in 2016
if the U.S. then produced only 15 billion gallons of ethanol. Obviously, the absolute
effect on corn and other exports would be much lower at today’s lower production levels,
and any such large prediction at today’s production levels would be absurd.

Recent Export Behavior: As alleged proof that U.S. corn ethanol is not
impacting the U.S. exports at all, Wang and Haq point out that U.S. corn exports have
remained basically constant for many years and modestly rose in 2007. But to maintain
this level of exports, the U.S. planted almost 20 million more acres to corn in 2007 than it
did in 2004 – mainly by shifting acres out of soybeans, but also some acres out of cotton
and wheat. Given that 25% increase in corn acres, flat corn exports are proof of the
impact of ethanol, which absorbs nearly all the increase. Even so, corn exports could
attain these levels only through reduction in feed use and by reducing stocks. And as
predicted by our study, the shift of soybean acres to corn in the U.S. has reduced exports
of soybeans, while also depleting its year-end stocks. In short, as USDA has also**
concluded, rising ethanol production will reduce U.S. corn exports and trigger increased
production abroad. P.C. Westcott, Ethanol Expansion in the United States: How Will the
Agricultural Sector Adjust (Economic Research Service, USDA 2007).

**(Wang and Haq were apparently confused by the explanation that our study assumes constant
growth in yields according to existing trends but not additional growth in yields due to the higher
prices that result from ethanol, i.e., the growth in yields “from biofuels.” Our study assumed that
the additional efforts by farmers to boost yields, would be balanced out by the need to rely on
more marginal land, but we analyzed a different scenario as part of the sensitivity analysis that
assumed additional yield increases.)

Wang’s claim also logically confuses the relevant comparison needed to
determine the incremental effect of biofuels on land use. Because of rising yields, in the
absence of biofuels, the U.S. would increase its overall agricultural exports, either in the
form of grain or meat (which can be viewed as a grain product.) Constant exports
indicate biofuel impacts, not their absence. The proper analysis is not the absolute levels
by which exports change over time, but the way in which biofuels alter what exports
would otherwise be at a particular time, such as 2015.

Finally, focusing on any single year is always misleading. In any year, many
circumstances influence what happens to imports and exports, including currency swings
and weather patterns around the world. U.S. wheat exports this year remained high
because of a combination of good growing weather in the U.S. and terrible weather
abroad. Any use of a single year, particularly one which ignores stocks, is misleading.
The basic proof that biofuels in the U.S. are influencing world agricultural production is
the sharp rise in crop prices, significantly but not exclusively attributable to biofuels,
which by its nature triggers agricultural expansion.

Ethanol By-Product: The Wang letter criticizes the study for giving insufficient
credit to the nutritional value of distiller’s grains, a corn ethanol by-product, by failing to
recognize its higher protein content. Although at most a moderate factor in the analysis,
the study did not assume that distillers’ grains would only replace corn on a pound-for-
pound basis as claimed. The letter greatly oversimplifies the nutritional issues involved
in using this by-product. The actual use of distiller’s grains varies by the type of
livestock. The model attributes its use for energy and protein in the feed ration based on
least-cost formulations considering all the nutritional requirements by type of animal,
including lysine, which is a critical nutrient in the poultry diet that is deficient in DDGs.
The parameters in our model used to calculate DDG use in feed ration are based on
current research information from actual animal feeding experiments. Rather than based
on a simple assumption of displacement value, the use of DDGs is calculated by the
model based on technical maximum inclusion limit, displacement rates for both corn and
soymeal, and adoption rates of DDG. All these vary by type of animal feed ration
formulated. (Assuming one kind of simple displacement value of a by-product, rather
than modeling how by-products are actually used and affect demands of other products, is
a much simpler form of analysis, and the kind that prevails in nearly all greenhouse gas
studies.) USDA has come to similar general conclusions about the use of distillers
grains.**

**(See P.C. Westcott, Ethanol Expansion in the United States: How Will the Agricultural Sector
Adjust (Economic Research Service, USDA, May 2007): “istillers grains from each bushel of corn used
to produce ethanol substitutes for about a fifth of a bushel of direct corn feeding in livestock rations. Since
beef cattle are large users of distillers grains, only a small reduction is expected in soybean meal use due to
the substitution of distillers grains in rations.”)

Recent Patterns of Land Use Change Abroad: Wang and Haq claim that our
study wrongly predicts forest and grassland will provide new cropland because
“deforestation rates have already declined through legislation in Brazil” and because of
efforts elsewhere “to convert marginal crop land” into grassland and forest. There is no
logical connection between the conclusion and the premise. World deforestation and
other land use changes are continuing. The amount depends on a range of factors,
including the total demand for agricultural land for food, and biofuels are only one factor.
The world could reduce conversion and global warming in a variety of ways, including
laws and efforts to boost agricultural yields around the world. Efforts that reduce the
amount of land use change would alter the baseline condition but would not necessarily
alter the amount or type of land that would be converted to replace any particular acre of
grain diverted to biofuels. So long as people are able to maintain their food consumption,
the world will expand its agricultural land to meet demands.

The influences on world deforestation rates are also far more complex than can be
captured by a few random facts. There is no evidence that deforestation rates are
declining worldwide or even in Brazil overall. Rates of deforestation in Brazil declined
in recent years with lower crop prices, but they have spiked in recent months in apparent
response to higher crop prices, precisely as shown by previous studies. Reuters,
“Amazon Rain Forest Destruction Quickens” (January 21, 2008). More broadly, there is
no reason to assume that the release of carbon in Brazil for each new acre of cropland
will be lower in the future than it was in the 1990’s. In the 1990’s, the great bulk of
conversion occurred in a lower forest/savannah area known as the Cerrado, but most of
the Cerrado is now already converted. The Amazon, whose forests are higher and more
carbon-rich, has therefore increasingly become the prime area of new conversion for
cropland. Meanwhile, new roads, such as the Trans-Pacific highway, are potentially
opening up portions of the Amazon to agricultural development in other countries, such
as Peru. On a worldwide basis, the best estimates find that greenhouse gas emissions
from land use change in 2000-2005 closely tracked those from the previous two decades.
J.G. Canadell et al., “Contributions to Accelerating Atmosphere CO2 Growth From
Economic Activity, Carbon Intensity and Efficiency of Natural Sinks,” Pro. Nat. Ac. Sci.
104:18866-18870 (2007). Today’s record high crop prices, in significant part a reflection
of biofuels, increases the likelihood of the kind of government and private investments
that lead to agricultural conversion in more remote, carbon-rich lands.

Which lands provide the cropland for the future are in part unknowable because,
among other factors, it will turn on shifting government policies and infrastructure. If
one country tightens its controls on land use, agricultural expansion may shift to another.
Precisely because of this complexity, our study used actual data from the 1990’s and
assumed that future conversion would follow the 1990’s. By some amount or other, that
will obviously be untrue because the future never perfectly reflects the past. The most
important lesson of the 1990’s is that conversion occurs in a wide variety of habitat types,
some richer in carbon than others, but all with high carbon losses. Our study by no
means predicts that land conversion will typically come from the most carbon-rich lands,
and while future results could be better than the 1990’s, they could also be worse.

Possible Improvements in Ethanol Efficiency: Wang and Haq correctly observe
that new technologies could improve the efficiency of the ethanol conversion process.
Our study analyzed the impact of vast improvements in ethanol refining efficiency and
found that they had a meaningful effect but still left corn ethanol triggering large net
increases in greenhouse gases.

Possible Use of Different Feedstocks or Lands: The letter also correctly points
out that other feedstocks could be used, but as the Wang letter fails to recognize, the
effects of a shift to cellulosic ethanol depend on the form of cellulose. Waste products
would cause no land use change emissions. Biomass produced abundantly on otherwise
unproductive land would cause small land use change emissions. And feedstocks
produced on productive land (whether productive of food, forest or grassland) would
cause high land use change emissions. Searchinger et al. and Fargione et al. are
consistent.

A DOE release that largely mimics Wang and Haq also argues that using corn
land to produce biofuels is unlikely because of higher corn prices and therefore not
proposed. We agree that higher corn prices decrease the likelihood of using corn lands,
but DOE has previously incorporated the conversion of tens of millions of acres of
croplands into its biomass projections, and whole workshops and study teams focus on
the potential to convert some of the best parts of the corn belt to biomass. The poor
economics of doing so provide another reason to produce biofuels if possible in
productive ways on otherwise unproductive lands.

Confusion of Effects on Baseline with Effects of Ethanol: Apart from specific
errors, the Wang letter appears to repeat the common error that has guided previous
greenhouse gas accountings, which is to attribute to biofuels any factor that could
improve or hold down the baseline level of land use change. It is not proper to attribute
benefits to biofuels for changes that would occur with or without biofuels. And factors
that influence the baseline – even factors that could theoretically cause overall crop prices
to drop – do not necessarily affect the incremental effect on land use by diverting an acre
of cropland to produce biofuels.

GENERAL DISCUSSION OF UNCERTAINTIES

Although we consider these recent criticisms off the mark, we fully acknowledge
many inherent uncertainties in this kind of study. Studies of particular countries could
provide more detailed information about source of agricultural conversion or soil carbon
content. Difficult studies might provide more information about how higher prices
themselves triggered by biofuels might spur greater yields. But many uncertainties will
remain. For example, higher crop prices could encourage more countries to build the
infrastructure to expand agriculture in carbon-rich habitats, including countries that share
the Amazon with Brazil or the rain forests of Africa, which would increase the emissions
from land use change. The power of our study lies in the robustness of the result even
with very different assumptions. That suggests a cautionary approach, and yet more
reason to focus on biofuels that do not create high risks of substantial land use change.

http://www.princeton.edu/~tsearchi/writings.html

[excess_3]

2. this would be nice, if true .n/t

[phantom power]

6. In other news... phantom power achieves unprecedented ethanol inputs.

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