Yet another study has found that Searchinger et al.’s paper on Indirect Land Use was not based on ‘sound science’. According to researchers Professor John Matthews and Dr. Hao Tan, from Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, the Searchinger paper is more ideology than science and is seeking to put biofuels in the worst possible light. In addition, they say, alternative approaches are more likely to be fruitful in genuinely evaluating effects of biofuels grown around the world. This from the new report, “Biofuels and indirect land use change effects: the debate continues”.
Their efforts revealed that the framework used started with assumptions as to the diversion of grain to ethanol production in the U.S. but then extrapolated these parts of the world, such as sugarcane growing in Brazil, which are actually much more bio-efficient. Professors Mathews and Tan’s analysis concluded that Searchinger et al. failed sound scientific standards on many fronts and that government agencies relying on Searchinger et al. findings for evaluating biofuels would be better served by utilizing other controls.
“Indirect land use change effects are too diffuse and subject to too many arbitrary assumptions to be useful for rule-making,” stated Professor Mathews. “The use of direct and controllable measures such as building statements of origin or biofuels into the contracts that regulate the sale of such commodities would secure better results.”
According to Matthews and Tan, there are six ways Searchinger et al. fell short:
- 1. Direct plantings of biofuels crops around the world are ignored, and instead a spike in U.S. corn-based ethanol is considered a trigger.
2. The U.S. spike is met exclusively by growing corn, but other ways of meeting the U.S. spike, all involving fewer GHG emissions, are ignored.
3. The U.S. spike met entirely within the U.S. – without regard to trade (such as half of the spike being met by Brazilian sugarcane and imported into the U.S.).
4. The Searchinger et al. calculations of carbon release are based on trends recorded in the 1990s but are projected forward up to 2016.
5. Improvements in biomass yields around the world are not considered.
6. The U.S. spike leads to indirect effects around the world without regard to regulatory limits (even in the U.S.).
“If you wished to put U.S. ethanol production in the worst possible light, assuming the worst possible set of production conditions guaranteed to give the worst possible set of indirect land use effects, then the assumptions would not be far from those actually presented in the Searchinger et al. paper,” commented Dr. Hao Tan. “Frankly, better science upon which to base rule-making is available today.”
If you’d like to participate in the debate, then consider attending the Land Use Conference in St. Louis hosted by NCGA (Aug. 25-26). They will be discussing current models, limitations and develop recommendations for future science and policy.
The search for renewable energy sources is varied and sometimes strange and here is another one to add to the strange category: turning seawater into kerosene-based jet fuel. Who would research something like this? Look no further than our very own U.S. Navy. Navy chemists have processed seawater into unsaturated short-chain hydrocarbons that with further refining could be made into jet fuel. The catch? They will now have to discover a clean energy source to power the reaction if the end product is to be carbon neutral.
A 14-million-gallon-a-year biodiesel plant in Kentucky is on schedule for opening later this month.
One of the benefits of doing this job is that I can do it from the comfort of my easy chair, while watching some of my favorite programs with one eye and searching for stories with the other (hey, God gave me two eyes… just consider it multi-tasking). But tonight, my eyes are firmly fixed on the tube, as one of my favorite programs, Nova Science Now, is featuring the really green fuel, algae biodiesel.
Eight major U.S. airlines have signed a deal that will see them buying 1.5 million gallons of renewable biodiesel a year to use in ground equipment starting in 2012.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, along with Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar, will visit Des Moines, Iowa tomorrow, Wednesday, August 19th as part of the USDA Rural Tour, a townhall tour of America’s heartland. The Iowa State Fair will host Vilsack as he aims to engage local citizens to open the dialogue between policymakers and rural America.
Additional tour stops to discuss green jobs and a new energy economy, with a focus on renewable energies will be upcoming in Sedalia, MO on Aug. 21 in Zanesville, OH. 
ZAP
The Phase 2 model incorporated several new features including adding magnesium and several composites to the materials that may now be evaluated for their emissions from manufacturing through use and end-of-life; advanced powertrains including diesel and fuel cells; the ability to evaluate the impact of biofuels and other ag sources for the production of these fuels; and the capability to produce an analysis of total energy consumed over a car’s life cycle to compliment the total greenhouse gas emission analysis.
For the past several months, grants and incentives have been released to help keep the biofuels industry moving forward and successful. One set of programs that were launched through the stimulus package gave