Impacts of Biofuels

Background

The indirect land use change impacts of biofuels have been a contentious issue for the last couple of years as the search for a more sustainable fuel has led to an increase in conversion of land that was previously forested or farmed to land for the cultivation of crops for biofuels. The theory of ILUC was pushed to the forefront when Science published a study by Tim Searchinger in February 2008. Searchinger has since been highly criticized by the academic community for his lack of scientific training and flawed ethical and intellectual conclusions.

Some critics of biofuels argue that the use of land for growing biomass for fuel and energy purposes reduces food security, encourages deforestation, contributes to soil degradation, puts increasing pressure on water resources and contributes to the loss of biodiversity. It is argued that direct land use change, such as deforesting and using the newly cultivated land for planting biocrops, releases stored greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, negating any savings in growing biocrops to begin with. However, research is underway to increase crop productivity and conversion efficiency, which if combined with conservation techniques such as no-till and buffer zones, could reduce the need for more crop land and ease the land use impacts of biofuels.

Food vs. Fuel

Crops such as corn, sugarcane and soybean have been the focus of development of biofuels as renewable energy sources all over the world. This has led to land, once used to grow food crops, being converted to growing crops to be used for fuel. A debate has ensued as to whether or not the competition for resource, such as land and water, has led to the intensification of food shortages and increased food prices around the globe.

Around the globe, 1.02 billion people are coping with malnutrition, currently making it the leading cause of death around the world.¹ With these numbers rising every day, any decrease in the global food supply would have disastrous results. Since most of the land suitable for growing crops is already in use, the switch from food to biomass would lead to a drop in the food supply unless crops were engineered to be more productive. Any drop in the food supply results in high prices for foods and leads to global unrest, sometimes seen in the form of protests or riots, as seen in Mexico, Italy, Jakarta, Pakistan and Haiti. According to Earth Policy Institute, ethanol production in the U.S. has led to price increases of beef, chicken, pork, eggs, breads, cereals and milk of 10% to 20%. ²

However, not everyone agrees that increases in biofuels production have led to increased food prices. Supporters of biofuels claim that the higher food prices argument is simply untrue, due to the fact that agricultural practices have become more efficient over the last several decades, growing more biomass on less land than ever before. It has been noted that when adjusted for inflation, commodity crops are at the same prices that they were at in the 1930’s.³

Soil Erosion

Corn production causes more soil degradation and uses more nitrogen fertilizer, insecticides and herbicides than any other cultivated crop and soybean production is close behind.^{4 5 6} Grass and cellulosic ethanol is being developed as a second generation biofuels, although this has environmental effects too. Crop residue, such as corn stover or other agricultural waste, can be collected and used for fuel. However, crop residue is critical in the protection of topsoil. Without this protection, it is estimated that soil erosion could intensify from 10 fold or as much as 100 fold depending on the crop and the slope of the land.^{7 8}

Water Resources

Availability of water is another controlling factor in the production of crops, whether for food or energy. The chart below shows that it takes only 3 gallons of water to produce one gallon of ethanol, which ranks at the bottom of the list of industrial water usage, but this does not include the gallons of water necessary to grow the corn.

Gallons of Water Used in U.S. Industrial Application

Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Author: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Permission: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

In order to produce 9 t/ha of corn, 7 million liters of water is required. That breaks down to 700,000 gallons of water for every acre.⁹ Many of the other grains used to make biofuels also require large amounts of water, contributing to the demand for an already stressed resource. In order to make one gallon of ethanol, over 1,700 gallons of water are needed.¹⁰

However, it is important to point out that in 2008, the entire U.S. biodiesel industry used less water in production than it takes to irrigate Sun Belt golf courses in one year.¹¹ Furthermore, proponents point out that much of the water that it takes to grow corn is returned to the atmosphere via plant evapotranspiration. They also note that according to the USDA 90-93% of the U.S. corn fields are not irrigated, relying only on rainfall. Innovation leading to advances in technology could improve efficiency by 7-10% on the land that does rely on irrigation without impacting yields.¹² Farmers are already relying on intricate management and monitoring tools which tells farmers how much water the crop is using and losing, which allows farmers to only irrigate when necessary and can improve efficiency by up to half.¹³

In ethanol production, the industry uses an average of 3 to 3.5 gallons of water, or half of what it was a few years ago. The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimates that 70% of water consumption is mainly used in energy production.¹⁴ Due to the uncertainty of the quality of water coming into an ethanol plant, the industry has found it to be more efficient to manage and recycle wastewater used in the production cycle since it is more consistent. Additionally, in order to reduce water usage further, some production plants are using “gray” wastewater, returning water to farms for irrigation and controlling mineral and nutrient levels in the water supply. In development is zero-discharge technology that totally does away with waste issues.¹⁵

As climate change intensifies, rain patterns are expected to shift, leading to intensified flooding and droughts and presumably result in the increased need of water for irrigation of crops around the globe and thus, a decrease in the availability of drinking water.¹⁶

Deforestation

Land cleared to make way for an oil palm plantation

Source: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/24/47...b162ae.jpg?v=0. Author: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/24/47...b162ae.jpg?v=0. Permission: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/24/47...b162ae.jpg?v=0.

The theory is pretty straight forward and goes like this: as the demand for corn increases in order to meet the needs of ethanol production, corn prices in the U.S. rise, which causes farmers of other crops to switch to growing corn. This leads farmers in other parts of the world to make up for the shortage of, for example, soy. This process of land conversion in countries, such as Brazil, is a huge concern as it destroys portions of the Amazon and releases stored CO2.

But not everyone agrees with this theory. It is conceivable that farmers will convert one crop to another in order to capitalize on higher crop prices, but that in itself does not convert previously untouched land to farmland. Reports have shown that deforestation in Brazil has actually dropped and is not attributable to increases in soy or other grains used in biofuels production, but to the clearing of rainforest for grazing land for cattle. Furthermore, DTN/The Progressive Farmer claims that U.S. corn and soybean exports are holding steady or increasing while the amount of land used to grow corn and soybeans in Brazil is remaining the same or decreasing.¹⁷

Palm oil plantation in Malaysia

Source: www.flickr.com/photos/13402816@N00/405445664/. Author: www.flickr.com/photos/13402816@N00/405445664/. Permission: www.flickr.com/photos/13402816@N00/405445664/.

The same cannot be said for countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia, who provide 86% of the world’s palm oil.¹⁸ Indonesia has converted much of its virgin forest to monocrop plantations of oil palms and become the world’s number one palm oil producer, cultivating 15 million acres, a number which is predicted to reach 30 million acres by 2020.¹⁹

The island of Borneo alone grows almost 8 million acres of oil palm, which is about the size of Switzerland.²⁰ Studies show that it would take between 75 and 93 years for the CO2 emissions saved by using biofuels to make up for the stored carbon that was released during the initial conversion of land from forest to cropland.²¹ Land conversion from peatland to cropland would take 600 years to balance the carbon debt.²² The number of years varies depending on the method used to clear the forest. However, only 5% of palm oil produced goes into biofuels production.²³

Loss of Biodiversity

An orangatun is tranquilized in order to relocate him away from a palm oil plantation on Borneo

Source: www.landcoalition.org/.../?tag=indonesia&paged=2. Author: AFP/AFP/Getty Images . Permission: www.landcoalition.org/.../?tag=indonesia&paged=2.

The last couple of decades has seen a push to cultivate and harvest oil palms for fuel purposes in developing tropical countries, especially Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Colombia.²⁴ The increase of palm plantations in tropical countries is a concern because not only does the removal of tropical rainforest increase CO2 emissions but the removal of rainforest and plantation of oil palms also decreases the biodiversity of the ecosystem. Studies show that oil palm plantations, compared to forest, always have less species diversity of birds, lizards and mammals at 38% than that of forest.²⁵ This is a substantial impoverishment of the animal community. Many forest species are lost and replaced with fewer nonforest species, resulting in less biodiversity. Species with specific diets tend to disappear the quickest since they cannot find the food or habitat they require on single crop plantations.

Not only is the fauna affected when forests are converted to plantations, but the flora is as well. Oil palm plantations have been shown to have severely impoverished plant biodiversity when compared to the forests that previously stood on the same land. Native species such as orchids or indigenous palms are totally absent from oil palm plantations.

Overall, conversion of forests to single crop plantations, such as oil palm, sugar cane or soybean, in an effort to increase biofuels production will increase the acceleration of climate change and loss of biodiversity. There are signs that the oil palm industry is working to minimize the impacts that the plantations have on biodiversity, however, the rapid expansion of the growing of soybean and sugar cane in tropical countries will likely have a similar impact on biodiversity if they are set up in forests or peatlands.²⁶

Footnotes

1. FAO (2009). “ The State of Food Insecurity in the World.” Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Accessed February 25, 2010.

2. Brown, Lester R. (2008). “Why Ethanol Production Will Drive World Food Prices Even Higher in 2008.” Earth Policy Institute. February 25, 2010.

3. Jobe, Joe. (2009) “Indirect Land Use and Y2K.” Biodiesel Magazine. July 2009. Accessed February 26, 2010.

4. NAS (2003). “Frontiers in Agricultural Research: Food, Health, Environment, and Communities.” Washington, DC, National Academy of Sciences. Accessed February 25, 2010.

5. McLaughlin, S.B., and Walsh, M.E. (1998). “Evaluating Environmental Consequences of Producing Herbaceous Crops for Bioenergy.” Biomass and Bioenergy 14: 4317-324

6. Patzek, T.W. (2004). “Thermodynamics of the Corn-Ethanol Biofuel Cycle.” Critical Review in Plant Sciences 23: 6519-567

7. Rasnake, M. (1999). “Tillage and Crop Residue Management.” Accessed February, 25, 2010.

8. Fryrear, D.W., and Bilbro, J.D. (1994). “Wind erosion control with residues and related practices.” In Unger, P.W. (ed.), Managing Agricultural Residues. Lewis, Boca Raton, FL, pp. 7-17

9. Pimentel et al. (2004) “Water Resources: Current and Future Issues.” BioScience 54: 10909-918

10. Pimentel, David and Patzek, T.W. (2008). “Ethanol production using corn, switchgrass and wood; biodiesel production using soybean.” In Pimentel, David (ed.), Biofuels, Solar and Wind as Renewable Energy Systems: Benefits and Risks. Springer, Dordrecht, The Netherlands, pp. 375-396

11. Jobe (2009).

12. Ethanol Across America. (2009). “Issue Brief: Environmental Impacts of Ethanol Production.” Summer 2009.

13. Ethanol Across America (2009).

14. Ethanol Across America (2009).

15. Ethanol Across America (2009).

16. Cline, W.R. (2007). “Global Warming and Agriculture: Impact Estimates by Country.” Peterson Institute for International Economics. Accessed February 25, 2010.

17. Gartlan, Kieran. (2009). “Brazilian Deforestation Explained.” DTN/The Progressive Farmer. May 28, 2009. Accessed February 26, 2010.

18. Mel White. (2008). “Borneo’s Moment of Truth.” National Geographic. Washington: Nov 2008. Vol. 214, Iss. 5; p. 35

19. White (2008).

20. White (2008).

21. Danielsen, Finn et al. (2009). “Biofuel Plantations on Forested Lands: Double Jeopardy for Biodiversity and Climate.” Conservation Biology. Volume 23, No. 2, 348-358.

22. Danielsen (2009).

23. USDA Foreign Agricultural Service. (2007). GAIN Report. Report Number E47047, FAS EU-27.

24. Thoenes, P. (2007). “Biofuels and Commodity Markets – Palm Oil Focus.” FAO Commodities and Trade Division. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Rome.

25. Danielsen (2009).

26. Danielsen (2009).

Resources

 Bourne, Joel K, Jr. (2007).  "Green Dreams." National Geographic. Washington: Oct 2007. Vol. 212, Iss. 4; pg. 38, 14 pgs

Searchinger, Timothy, et al. (2008).  "Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions from Land-Use Change."     Science. 29 February 2008: Vol. 319. no. 5867, pp. 1238 - 1240