93 percent increase in greenhouse gases? Renewable Fuel Association says fossil fuels created the “carbon debt we can never repay”

The 93 percent increase in greenhouse gases from biofuels production, predicted in two articles in Science magazine, has attracted initial responses from biofuels advocates.

Bob Dineen, the executive director of the Renewable Fuels Association, said: “It is important that we all take a step back and reflect on why we must aggressively deal with climate change. It’s because for more than 100 years we have burned fossil fuels like coal and oil without concern for the environmental consequences. This laissez faire attitude has [created] a “carbon debt” that can never be repaid. Failing to adopt technologies available today, like biofuels and improved gas mileage… relegates the world to more of the same…You must ask yourself, if not biofuels, what?”

Brian Jennings, executive vice-president of the American Coalition for Ethanol, testifying before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on the implementation of the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS), cited concerns about the proposed penalizing of corn-based ethanol for so-called “indirect land use changes” that are calculated against the fuel’s lifecycle emissions analysis.

Some models being developed assume that increased demand for corn in the U.S. is causing previously uncultivated land in developing nations to be cleared for agricultural production. It then calculates the greenhouse gas emissions resulting from land clearing in Brazil and assigns those estimated emissions to the lifecycle emissions analysis of corn-based ethanol in the U.S.

“It is unmistakable,” said Jennings, “decreasing petroleum use and greenhouse gas emissions will require both grain and cellulosic biofuels. Implementation of the new RFS needs to recognize this fact. If the EPA applies arbitrary indirect land use modeling and penalizes grain-based ethanol in the RFS rulemaking, ACE will be forced to oppose the rule change and encourage Congress to help provide a common sense remedy.”
Two papers published in Science magazine this month have attempted to calculate the added effect of land-use conversion on the greenhouse gas emissions associated with biofuels, and concludes that production of almost all biofuels “resulted, directly or indirectly, intentionally or not, in new lands being cleared, either for food or fuel.”

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