Better biofuels before more biofuels

February 14, 2008

Alexander E. Farrell

[san Francisco Chronicle Open Forum]

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

It's all about the land, not the crops. While California and the nation

pursue biofuels for energy security and climate change, we must ensure that

cleaner technologies are the result, not irreversible damages.

New research suggests that corn ethanol may have greenhouse gas emissions

nearly double the emissions of gasoline. The reason is that the way we make

biofuels today increases the global demand for land and accelerates the

clearance of wilderness for new farms.

For example, if a farmer in the United States shifts from a corn/soybean

rotation to continuous corn in order to supply a new ethanol facility, U.S.

exports of soybeans go down. This causes the global price of soybeans to go

up slightly, and farmers worldwide will find it profitable to clear a little

more land to grow soybeans. Of course, population growth and greater meat

consumption are also causing land clearance for new farmland, but increasing

production of biofuels accelerates the process.

Unfortunately, farmland expansion today often means clearing rainforest:

burning the trees, releasing carbon dioxide from the soil into the

atmosphere, and losing biodiversity.

This not about corn or sugarcane, or even switchgrass; the key idea is that

climate-friendly biofuels should not use fertile land. There are at least

three ways to get away from the food-fuel-wilderness competition.

The first approach is to use make biofuels from wastes, such as garbage

headed to the landfill, or agricultural residues such as rice hulls and

corncobs. The second is to use land that cannot be used for food crops,

which might include planting natural prairie grasses on abandoned farmland

or growing algae in the desert. The third is to integrate biofuel production

into agriculture without diminishing CROP yields.

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