Scientists propose new ILUC analysis method

Ethanol Producer Magazine
By Erin Voegele
November 06, 2012

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US researchers say that indirect land use numbers should fall 75% on new analysis

Biofuels Digest

Jim Lane
November 9, 2012   Read more

Unresolved clash over indirect land use change leaves EU biofuels policy adrift

Biofuels Digest
Jim Lane
May 7, 2012

In the EU, a clash between the Climate Commission and the Energy Department, over indirect land use change, has left policymakers were unable to agree on an emissions accounting scheme revision needed to finally establish which feedstocks will be considered acceptable in meeting the EU’s biofuel targets.

The EU industry, which has reached $16M in annual sales, depends currently on a mix primarily of palm, soybean and rapeseed, for biodiesel production, and all feedstocks would be in jeopardy under proposed indirect land use change provisions. The EU is facing difficulties in meeting targets without access to its major feedstocks, while at the same time emissions caps aimed at oil refiners are pushing refiners towards greater use of biofuels.

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New Study Breaks Link Between Land Use, Biofuels

DomesticFuel.com
Posted by Joanna Schroeder – May 16th, 2011

In a new study released today by Michigan State University (MSU), biofuel production in the United States through 2007, “probably has not induced any indirect land use change.” The report was conducted by Seungdo Kim and Bruce Dale, both MSU scientists, and the results will be published in the next issue of the Journal of Biomass and Bioenergy. ILUC is the theory that any acre used in the production of feedstocks for biofuels in the U.S. results in a new acre coming into food or feed production somewhere else in the world.

Dale and Kim empirically tested whether indirect land use change (ILUC) occurred through 2007 as a result of the expansion of the U.S. biofuels industry, spurred in part by the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS2) that calls for 36 billion gallons of renewable fuel to be blended in fuel supplies by 2022. The researcher’s derived their conclusion after studying historical data on U.S. croplands, commodity grain exports to specific regions and land use trends in these geographical regions.

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RFA: DOE Researchers Find Indirect Land Use Change Impact Minimal to Zero

Biofuels Journal
Date Posted: October 20, 2010

Washington—The unproven notion that expanded U.S. ethanol production means new acres around the world must be brought into cultivation is taking another blow.

In a soon-to-be published paper, researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory conclude that indirect land use change (ILUC) resulting from expanded corn ethanol production over the past decade has likely been “minimal to zero.”

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ILUC From Corn Ethanol “Minimal to Zero”

DomesticFuel.com
Posted by Joanna Schroeder – October 20th, 2010

In a report that will be published soon,”Decomposition Analysis of U.S. Corn Use for Ethanol Production from 2001-2008,”the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory concludes that the indirect land use change (ILUC) as a result from the expansion of corn ethanol production over the past decade has likely been “minimal to zero.” The study was requested by the California Air Resources Board (CARB), which has appointed several teams of expert working groups to assess the methodology and data that went into California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard.

In response to the news, Geoff Cooper, the Vice President for Research and Analysis for the Renewable Fuels Association remarked, “The most recent work on ILUC is showing that ethanol expansion in the U.S. simply isn’t incurring the type of land use changes that were originally hypothesized. The initial results recently presented by the Department of Energy are further proof that America can continue to meet its global responsibilities to provide food and feed, while simultaneously providing a cleaner, domestic alternative to petroleum—all without needing to bring new lands into agriculture.”

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New EU report on indirect land use change

Biofuels Digest
September 28, 2010 Jim Lane

In Italy, the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) published a new report on Indirect Land-Use Change (ILUC), which has become a hot debate topic surrounding the EU’s Renewable Energy Directive, that establishes a 10% target for renewable energy in transport fuels by 2020, and its Sustainability Criteria. The report was published the same day as the European Commission held a public consultation on ILUC in Brussels.

The report, Biofuels: a New Methodology to Estimate GHG Emissions from Global Land Use Change, is another in a series of reports published by the European Commission and others that strives to further understand the phenomena surrounding ILUC and how to calculate its impact in relating to biofuels, using modeling.

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ILUC – One Consideration Too Many in Biofuel Regulation

DomesticFuel.com
Posted by Joanna Schroeder – May 20th, 2010

In a recent article, “Indirect Land Use: One Consideration Too Many in Biofuel Regulation,” authors David Zilberman, a professor in UC Berkeley’s Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics and assistant researcher Gal Hochman, along with Deepak Rajagopal, argue that indirect land use effects (ILUEs) should not be considered in current California and federal biofuels polices. The authors write, “…we will argue here against an indirect land use in biofuel regulations for the basic reason that its inclusion in LCAs (life cycle analysis) contradicts a basic principle of regulation – namely that individuals are responsible only for actions that they control. The indirect land uses are difficult to compute and vary over time.”

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RFA: Purdue University Research Undercuts CA Low Carbon Fuel Standard

Biofuels Journal
Date Posted: April 28, 2010

Washington—A recently completed state-of-the-art analysis from Purdue University concludes that the California Air Resources Board (ARB) overestimated the indirect land use change (ILUC) impact of grain-based ethanol by a factor of two in developing its Low Carbon Fuels Standard (LCFS) one year ago.

In a letter sent April 28 to ARB Chair Mary Nichols, the Renewable Fuels Association pointed out this dramatic conclusion and reminded ARB of its promise to review and incorporate new science as it becomes available.

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U.S., Europe Going Opposite Way On Biofuels

Forbes.com
February 12, 2010 - 5:18 pm
Jonathan Fahey

It is becoming ever more apparent that there is one big squishy variable in the calculations that determine whether biofuels help the planet or help destroy it. That variable is called the indirect land use charge, and the U.S. and Europe are coming up with very different answers for it.

The concept goes like this: Planting crops for biofuels in the U.S. or Europe may cause someone in Brazil or Indonesia to put more earth under the plow. Clearing forest and digging up soil releases lots of carbon into the atmosphere -- the very thing biofuels are supposed to be helping to prevent. So whatever carbon benefit biofuels do produce should be reduced by the amount released by new farming.

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Questions About Biofuels’ Environmental Costs Could Alter Europe’s Policies

The New York Times
By JAMES KANTER
Published: February 11, 2010

BRUSSELS — A top European farm official has suggested that yet-to-be-released studies by the European Commission could be used to “kill” heavily promoted and subsidized biofuels by focusing on their total environmental impact.

The suggestion, written in the margins of internal correspondence seen by The International Herald Tribune, could foreshadow a further retreat from the biofuel-friendly policies that the commission once called crucial in the fight against climate change.

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Biomass Utilization, Rain Forests and Their Effect on the U.S. Carbon Footprint

Biomass Magazine December 2009
By Bruce Folkedahl

Biomass for heat, power and fuels is certainly not without its challenges. Recent editorials by Bruce Dale1 have illustrated the hypocrisy through which biofuels are being held to much higher standards than traditional fuels when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions.

The issue that carries the most damaging effect on the carbon footprint of the production of biofuels is indirect land-use change. This is essentially a method of accounting for increased greenhouse gas emissions from the supposed increase in agricultural lands to offset the amount of agricultural lands utilized in biomass for biofuels production. The theory goes that if 1,000 acres of corn previously used for food is now going to biofuels production, then 1,000 acres of new agricultural lands, such as clearing rain forests for agriculture, will be brought into production.

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Dale, Searchinger debate biofuels, indirect land use change

BiofuelsDigest
October 07, 2009 Jim Lane

In Michigan, the German Marshall Fund recently hosted a debate on biofuels and indirect land use change between Tim Searchinger, transatlantic fellow at the German Marshall Fund and Bruce Dale, professor at Michigan State University. The debate was moderated by Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post and is available on video here.

According to one industry observer, “Dale pretty much wiped the floor with Searchinger.”

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The Great Potential of Future Corn Yields

National Corn Growers Association
(9-28-09)

Sept. 28: One of the challenges for the National Corn Growers Association in responding to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed regulations implementing the expanded Renewable Fuel Standard was dealing with its very conservative estimates of future corn yield at a time when yields are significantly increasing. Such a low estimate of yields was a major driver in incorrect assumptions by the EPA about international indirect land use change.

An analysis performed by Ross Korves of the ProExporter Network for NCGA’s formal submission to the EPA spoke of the yields seen in NCGA’s annual National Corn Yield Contest and efforts to translate them into success for more farms.

“Most of the winners in recent years in the non-irrigated categories had yields of 250-300 bushels per acre,” Korves wrote. “The winners in the irrigated categories had yields of 300-360 bushels per acres. Soil capabilities and rainfall patterns are available to support much higher yields than the average yields of today. Technology is now being developed to achieve those higher yields on a more consistent and wide-spread basis.”

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EPA Rule Will Reflect 'Uncertainty' on Indirect Biofuels Emissions, Fending Off Amendment

New York Times - Energy & Environment
By BEN GEMAN of Greenwire
Published: September 24, 2009
This story was updated at 11:15 a.m. EDT.

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) yesterday backed off efforts to block EPA from weighing contested ethanol emissions after Administrator Lisa Jackson pledged that biofuels rules will reflect uncertainty around international indirect land-use change emissions.

Harkin and several other farm-state members had crafted an amendment to the agency's fiscal 2010 spending bill that would have barred use of funds to consider these greenhouse gas emissions when implementing the national biofuels mandate. The bill is currently on the Senate floor (see related story).

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EPA officials show interest in refining indirect land use

Agriculture Online
Dan Looker
Agriculture.com Business Editor
9/04/2009, 9:00 AM CDT

At the request of Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) two high-ranking EPA officials came to Iowa Thursday to learn first-hand how their agency’s rules could affect farmers and the biofuels industry.

They got a tour of Iowa State University’s brand new BioCentury Research Farm near Boone, where round bales of last year’s switchgrass are waiting to be turned into cellulosic ethanol. They climbed into a combine and tractor at Rick and Martha Kimberley’s farm near Farrar. And they saw the Renewable Energy Group’s 30-million gallon biodiesel plant at Newton.

“I think we learned a lot,” EPA’s Gina McCarthy told Agriculture Online after stepping outside the spotlessly clean biodiesel plant. “It helps us put a face on the agricultural issues and the challenges we face together.”

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Expert Analysis of Indirect Land Use Effects Finds Science Lacking

Biofuels Journal
Date Posted: August 19, 2009

Washington—A scholarly analysis of the keystone of indirect land use study - Searchinger et al. - found the science fell far short of acceptable scientific standards.

Professor John Mathews and Dr. Hao Tan, researchers from Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, undertook an exhaustive analysis of Searchinger et al. which revealed that the framework used was inappropriate in that it started with assumptions as to diversion of grain to ethanol production in the U.S. but then extrapolated these to parts of the world, such as sugarcane growing in Brazil, which are actually (much) more bio-efficient.

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ACE Conference Speakers Say More Research Needs to Be Done on Indirect Land Use

Biofuels Journal
Date Posted: August 14, 2009
by Jerry Perkins, BioFuels Journal Editor

Speakers at the 2009 American Coalition for Ethanol Conference and Trade Show in Milwaukee, WI, Aug. 11-13, said more research needs to be done before the impact of Indirect Land Use (ILU) can be accurately measured.

Prof. Wally Tyner of the Agricultural Economics Department at Purdue University said the concept of Indirect Land Use argues that corn used to make ethanol means more crops will have to be grown in other parts of world and that will lead to deforestation of the rain forest and more greenhouse gas emissions.

Before such sweeping conclusions can be made, Tyner said, more study needs to be done on ILU.

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Biofuel Showdown: Should Domestic Ethanol Producers Pay for Deforestation Abroad?

Scientific American
June 25, 2009

By Brendan Borrell

The biofuel lobby will win big by delaying rules on "indirect land-use change" for six years, but the National Academy of Sciences may now study the issue

After a fierce battle over agricultural incentives in a landmark climate bill, Congress plans to ask the National Academy of Sciences to study how biofuel production in the Midwest can shift food production abroad, stimulating a wave of deforestation.
Tomorrow's expected vote in the House of Representatives on the climate bill would move the nation a step closer to a cap-and-trade system that would limit greenhouse gas emissions. But the bill's sponsors have made significant concessions to Agriculture Committee Chairman Colin Peterson (D–Minn.), who threatened to torpedo the legislation as it was written. President Obama is pressing for its passage, which would still have to work its way through the Senate in July to become law.

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Indirect land use calculations giving ethanol, biodiesel producers heartburn

Southeast Farm Press
Jun 8, 2009 9:45 AM, By Forrest LawsFarm Press Editorial Staff

Collin Peterson remembers the first ethanol boom in the 1970s. The Arab oil embargo and resulting long lines and high prices at the gas pumps prompted a number of entrepreneurs to jump into corn-based renewable fuels.

But when unexpected energy conservation measures by the U.S. public reduced the demand for oil, gasoline and ethanol prices plummeted and the plants were shuttered. Peterson has said ethanol producers in his state of Minnesota never recovered.

So you might understand why Peterson was visibly angry when EPA released its proposed rule for implementing the Renewable Fuels Standard earlier this month. The proposal includes calculations of greenhouse gas emissions for all fuels covered by the standard.

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