Ethanol's Contentious Carbon Footprint

Despair abounds in the ethanol industry after the California Air Resources Board (ARB) voted 9 to 1 in favor of the so-called Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) last week. The regulation aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transportation fuels 10 percent by 2020.

Taking firm steps toward greenhouse gas emissions reductions is, of course, a good thing. But the new law could potentially cross corn ethanol off the list of fuel options for not only California but also the 11 states planning to adopt programs modeled on the LCFS.

The LCFS will rate the carbon intensity of different transportation fuels by calculating carbon emissions during each fuel’s production, transportation and consumption. Fuel refiners, blenders and distributors will be required to phase out high carbon intensity fuels or to purchase credits from utilities companies selling low-carbon electricity to power electric cars.

Greenhouse gas emissions from consuming and even transporting a fuel are pretty easy to measure. What are much harder to calculate—and far more controversial—are the emissions caused by a fuel’s production.

The biofuels industry has cried foul over ARB’s inclusion of emissions from what’s known as biofuels’ “indirect land use change” effect. Indirect land use change (ILUC) is an attempt to calculate the effect ethanol production has beyond just the land where the corn is grown and the refinery where it’s processed.

According to the scientists ARB commissioned to calculate ILUC, when American farmers sell their corn to ethanol plants, bypassing traditional food and feed markets, farmers on the other side of the globe cut down rainforests and plow up grasslands to plant crops to fill the gap. The resulting release of carbon dioxide from decomposition of exposed organic soil is large, many researchers argue, and must be included in corn ethanol’s carbon footprint.   

It’s not so simple, say ethanol producers and a different set of scientists. Not only is it almost impossibly difficult to accurately quantify the influence U.S. farmers’ actions have on decisions made a world away (how do you sift out other market pressures, politics, etc?), but also, say the critics, the ILUC burden falls unfairly on biofuels: no one is calculating the indirect emissions of petroleum, for example (add up the emissions created by our military in defense of our oil supply, and the number would likely be significant).

I’ve struggled with this one as I’ve watched the lead-up to this decision. Prominent scientists on each side have sent compelling letters to ARB defending or decrying ILUC. I’ve watched heated debates between ILUC inclusion’s defenders and those that support the ethanol industry. I’ve seen public policy students here at UC Berkeley, where I’m a graduate student (in journalism, not public policy), furrow their brows and scratch their heads over its muddled-ness.

How, then, to think about it?

The easiest part is this: to applaud California’s leadership on carbon emissions reductions, something we desperately need bold action on. After that, things get trickier. Clearly, indirect land use change exists, and it’s something we need to address. But is it responsible or useful to quantify this for policy? I’m not sure that it is. The work that’s been done on these calculations (much of it by UC Berkeley professors) has been good. But if you read the literature, you’ll find that an awful lot of uncertainty, unknowns and assumptions go into the calculations. That’s okay for academic work—a process of continual refining, debate, review, revision—but it’s problematic when it comes to policy that will have a big impact on the biofuel industry (and here I’m thinking most about the farmers who either grow biofuel crops, have a stake in local refineries, or both).

The critics here might say, “Well, what’s the alternative?” or “As compared to what?”

I don’t think it’s an either/or.

Until we can figure out a way to accurately calculate ILUC and other fuels’ indirect effects in a way that has—if not consensus—broader scientific and stakeholder support, ARB and eventually the EPA (who is watching this closely as a possible model), would be better off making carbon emissions reductions and indirect land use change two different issues.

ARB has committed to reviewing again the carbon intensity calculations before the LCFS becomes binding in January 2011. Let's hope they will decide to include only biofuels’ direct emissions, as they do for other fuels. Then let's enter into a separate dialogue—with separate policy initiatives—to work on indirect land use change and the indirect effects of other fuels. Let the scientists continue the ILUC debates, and let the stakeholders—both here and abroad—come together to find immediate ways to tackle the actual problem of ILUC.

My guess is that we’d make more progress on both fronts.

 

Comments

[Alan Muller]

Yes, it is hard to quantify the indirect effects or "externalities" of any activity. Arguable assumptions will always be in the mix. But we have to try. Every step taken to react to climate change will have indirect effects and we will stumble further and further into disaster if we don't do our best to anticipate them.
I think Ms. Olmstead's conclusions are indefensible.