All the above programs combined have barely made a measurable dent in the unsustainable juggernaut consuming the planet's biodiversity and resources.

Not true, at least with regards to LEED.  LEED has, in less than 10 years, jumpstarted a revolution in the building industry (one of the most staid and conservative industries in existence).  LEED rated buildings are a small fraction of buildings now being built, but that's not the point.  By creating an objective (albeit imperfect, but evolving) standard for assessing the greeness of a building, they have created a demand that has moved into the mainstream services and products that were essentially unknown a decade ago.

Compare an issue of ASHRAE Journal, or Construction Specifier, from a decade ago with an issue now.  The advertising content and the articles both reflect a huge shift in consciousness.  Yes, a good bit of it is greenwashing.  Yes, it is absolutely not enough.  Yes, even LEED Platinum buildings are not sustainable (although LEED has set the stage for a truly sustainable building standard to be developed).

It's not enough.  But it's something.  It's alot, in fact, relative to where we were a short time ago.  Don't be so quick to dismiss it.

This power plant could burn anything and the owners bought green fuels from the locals.  Once crop residues were consumed the locals would branch out all over the island cutting down everything in sight.  Molokai was on the fast track to deforestation before the plant collapsed for economic reasons.  The elders' council threw me off the island for not supporting their baby.

I traced the use of that power and found it was used for laundry dryers, hotel air conditioners, and residential hot water.  Users were too strapped for cash to make end-use energy improvements, and were going broke spending millions of dollars for more power.

Now Hawaii imports coal from Australia and gives lip service to efficiency and renewable energy.  Biomass is an excuse to not do the right things and maintain old routines.

There is not remotely enough plants to fuel and power our civilization and cars.

If consumers can be convinced to stop using these fuels until something truly sustainable arrives we would not need to create yet another marginally effective rating system, essentially putting a band aid on the amputation of biodiversity.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

First, the project died because it was unprofitable. What if the United States government had decided to subsidize the operation with tax dollars from 300 million citizens?

Also, the island has a clearly defined, difficult to penetrate (ocean) boundary that lets you define unsustainable. A fence around an African game park is another example where the elephants destroy biodiversity as they overpopulate.

People can't seem to envision the idea that if Molokai were to start importing biomass from, say, Maui, you really have not gained anything, it just looks like you have while standing in Molokai.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

We recommend four steps to create markets for green biofuels: 1. Measure the global warming intensity of biofuels. 2. Measure the overall environmental performance of biomass feedstock production. 3. Develop and implement a combined Green Biofuels Index. 4. Research better practices, assessment tools, and assurance methods.

I find your arguments puzzling.

First, we need to switch to lower GHG-emitting fuels even while we increase efficiency of cars, even while shifting to plug-in hybrids powered by low-GHG emitting sources of electricity. Even while creating policies to get people out of cars and airplanes (no biofuel source of jet fuel seems economically plausible today). Even while enforcing the speed limit. Therefore, biofuels must be part of the solutions we adopt.

I gave up driving a long time ago, and flying a couple of years ago, but it's not obvious that voluntary behavior changes among Americans and others are profoundly reducing fuel consumption, so solutions must be found.

If no green solutions exist, the future looks even more bleak. So solutions must be found.

They have leaped into the future and wrapped a whole green rating scheme around something that does not exist yet, analogous to giving hydrogen fuel cells the gold sticker for being the best way to power electric cars. In addition, it has been pointed out many times on this blog and elsewhere that humanity already burned up its forests once and had to switch to coal. Using forests to make liquid fuels would be a very inefficient use of that wood's stored energy. It would be far more efficient to displace coal by burning the wood directly (not to say I am promoting that) to generate electric power (URGE2).

No, it's analogous to describing what must be true about the adaptation of hydrogen as an energy carrier in order for it to be a green solution. And while it is true that using plants for electricity reduces GHG emissions more rapidly than using them for fuels, it is also true that A) there are many ways to reduce GHG emissions from electricity, and few for fuels, and B) shifting from oil to other substitutes (coal to liquids) will increase GHG emissions.

It's also not clear why you compare world programs (cap and trade, certifying biofuels) to programs meant to assuage the public, like USDA organic. There is low investment in many of these programs just because no one cares much about them. However, there is much concern worldwide about reducing GHG emissions without destroying what we are trying to save.

Rather than have a small organization test Forest Stewardship, for example, the report says,

A variety of institutions have roles to play here. The National Academies could, along with appropriately focused scientific bodies (e.g., American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, United States Association for Energy Economics, Ecological Society of America), help identify a research agenda to enable and expand markets for green biofuels. The National Science Foundation, Department of Agriculture, Department of Energy, Environmental Protection Agency, and similar state bodies could support such a research agenda.

Many thanks to Plevin and the others for their hard work and dedication in shifting us to a world with reduced GHG emissions.

Karen Street

Second: 'greenwash' ad campaigns are a way to alleviate the consumers' concerns, and tend to have the opposite effect on purchases as I had recently found out. BUT, certifications are not 'greenwash', they are legitimate ways of assessing the methods of production.

Biodiversivist, clearly you understand the need for housing and food, so then you also clearly understand that 'legitimizing' water sucking, etc. is unnecessary, because it's going to happen no matter what. Certifications are moving in the right direction by presenting sustainable options, and allowing for businesses to 'greenwash', while doing something positive. If it's not fast enough, then tough. It's our best shot. I dare you to find a better one.

Such to use a word I use too much, bs or to better use the English language, smoke and mirrors...anyways biodiversivist you better stop writing about this kind of thing are you might get a visitor. The bad kind, not the probing kind.

I can see a movie being made now-

-cue that fantasy sequence music-

You play the idealistic writer spreading the truth and Richard plays the evil science like guy.

"I will end you little boy. You are playing with my money. The potential of me to make lots of money." Richard in my screenplay

"You will never win, evil never really wins, even if it seems like it does, but you know..." biodiversivist

The name of the movie will be called.

"All the Presidents Little Green Men."

______________

....I guess pot is stronger now....

In bounciness, Lo Fleming

Atreyger,

let's not develop biofuels because of the potential of misuse,

Agrofuels being grown today are misuse, not potential for misuse. The only potential is how bad it is going to get. Are corn and soy and palm oil agrofuels raising food prices and exacerbating environmental degradation now, or is that just a future "potential?" And by develop, do you mean generously fund research or generously fund subsidies?

oh ok, let's continue business as usual as a result of that

Critiquing agrofuels is not tantamount to advocating business as usual. Agrofuels are not going to save the planet. And I'm not advocating business as usual. I'm advocating we stop the juggernaut and regroup (as is Monbiot). How hard is it for you or me not to buy corn ethanol or soy biodiesel?

oh and we'll need to drill ANWR and try to find every single remaining source of fossil fuels

We will be forced to drill in the ANWR because we stopped turning corn and soybeans into agrofuels? To date, corn ethanol has actually increased our use of oil.

Second: 'greenwash' ad campaigns are a way to alleviate the consumers' concerns, and tend to have the opposite effect on purchases as I had recently found out. BUT, certifications are not 'greenwash', they are legitimate ways of assessing the methods of production.

I never equated certification programs to greenwashing. Somebody else must have done that. However, stars, be they gold, bronze or whatever on corn or soy agrofuel, regardless of how they are grown, would legitimize a dead end strategy because there is no way to control leakage.

If it's not fast enough, then tough. It's our best shot. I dare you to find a better one.

Not sure what you mean by "it." But if you are telling me that agrofuels are our best shot at stopping global warming and/or the extinction event, well, most evidence to date suggests otherwise.

As for your dare, about 33% of America's CO2 comes from cars. Triple average gas mileage with plug in hybrids and you cut America's CO2 contribution from transport by two thirds--down to 10% without plowing under one acre of the Earth. Reduce coal for power generation by a third, get a multiplier effect on plug-in cars and things would really fall in place.

I'll address the rest of the commenters later.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Indeed, the difficulty of boat owners to avoid fuels containing ethanol has led to costly damage, complaints and even legal action.

BioD, I am coming into this string late, but I have nothing else to add except to compliment you on your post and the way you have dealt with the criticisms. Naturally, I am glad to see you raise the question of subsidies. Much if not most agrofuel production (outside of Brazilian ethanol, and perhaps some biodiesel made from waste oils and fats) would not exist were it not for subsidies and mandates.

These are only my personal opinions.

As mentioned here,
It points out that to grow this algae at any meaningful and cost effective rate.

You'd need to infuse it with concentrated CO2 emmisions.

Primarily from fossil carbon sources, like coal power plants.

_

Coal powered biomass doesn't sound as green anymore :O

Besides which, making it into a biofuel tosses away more than 3/4ths the original biomass energy.

-David Ahlport

Since you could potentially get the carbon from fermentation.

Although I guess algae in general is currently unlikely given all the focus on "farm grown fuels".

-David Ahlport

My worry was more-so that the current biofuels policy is just a feelgood-donothing approach, which is merely a method of dolling out porkbarrel subsidies to agri-business.

Certainly the best solution is to go electric.
http://www.greyfalcon.net/plugins
http://www.greyfalcon.net/electriccars.png

-David Ahlport

Politicians buy votes with tax money by giving it to industrial agriculture to grow agrofuels. They then mandate that this agrofuel be blended into the taxpayer's fuel, forcing them to buy the expensive agrofuel they were just forced to subsidize. Hmmm. Sounds a lot like the ham-fisted market manipulations of the late Soviet Union, where the politburo always thought it knew best.

Competing entrepreneurs looking to develop alternative energy sources (like biodiesel from algae) are now forced to lobby for their own subsidies if they have any hope of entering a market where competitors receive 50 cents to a dollar a gallon not to mention the billions given to agribusiness to grow the feed stock.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

First, we need to switch to lower GHG-emitting fuels even while we increase efficiency of cars

To do this switch, you first need to find a commercially produced, economically competitive agrofuel that actually lowers green house gases. The debate over whether or not corn ethanol uses more energy than it produces has seesawed back and forth for three decades. Greenhouse gas neutrality is the latest wrinkle and is closely tied to net energy gain. Recent peer reviewed estimates suggest that corn ethanol may reduce greenhouse gases 10-15%. However, according to the latest study from a researcher at MIT using a new method that estimates probabilities:

"Based on her "most likely" outcomes, she concluded that traveling a kilometer using ethanol does indeed consume more energy than traveling the same distance using gasoline."

Which suggests you will also emit more greenhouse gases. Not discussed are the other downsides of industrial agriculture, like the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico, water use, habitat destruction, pesticides and food prices.

Even the authors of this report begrudgingly concede that soy biodiesel is a dead end idea for a biofuel because it takes five times as much land to produce. Unless it can be proven that a given agrofuel does less overall environmental harm than fossil fuels, you can't put a star on it of any color. You can only rate agrofuels that meet that minimum requirement and there are none that do that yet. They don't yet have a fuel to put a star on.

...Therefore, biofuels must be part of the solutions we adopt.

Let me reword that sentence also. "Biofuels that are less environmentally destructive than fossil fuels can be part of the solutions we adopt." Your sentence does not exclude biofuels that are more environmentally destructive overall than fossil fuels.

So solutions must be found.

I agree, and that is why I critique.

A) there are many ways to reduce GHG emissions from electricity, and few for fuels, and B) shifting from oil to other substitutes (coal to liquids) will increase GHG emissions.

I don't disagree with the above statement. Coal to liquid fuels would not cross the threshold  but my point is that they are trying to place corn ethanol above the minimum threshold and it does not belong there either, for different but legitimate reasons.

Many thanks to Plevin and the others for their hard work and dedication in shifting us to a world with reduced GHG emissions.

Assuming they eventually find a fuel less destructive than fossil fuels that is. There is more to the debate than just greenhouse gases, as I said, things like dead zones, food prices, habitat destruction, water table depletion and air quality count as well.


In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

But UC Berkeley Professor of Geoengineering Tadeusz Patzek and Professor of Ecosystem Sciences and Energy and Resources John Harte raised questions about the science and claims made for the project--the largest corporate funding package in American university history.

And James Thorlby, Catholic priest and activist who works with the Pastoral Land Commission in Brazil, said that land barons in that nation are seizing state-owned land, evicting small farmers with troops and hire gangs to transform vast tracts into sugar cane fields for ethanol production.

Patzek charges that the output from biofuels simply can't match the energy inputs needed to grow the plants and transform the harvested crops in fuels like ethanol, while each American continues to consume enough calories of energy every year to grow "a big, fat sperm whale."

Patzek, one of the nation's leading critics of the rush to biofuels, said conservation, including alternative forms of transit, is one solution, while production of the nation's total energy needs from biofuels would require the sacrifice of all the nation's crops and two-thirds of the annual growth of its forests.

"All of the biological systems are quite inefficient compared to solar cells and wind," said Patzek.

Harte said that reliance on a crop like switchgrass as a source of biofuels would require enough land to produce significant climate changes in the United States.

While biomass effectively captures about 1 percent of solar energy per acre for conversion into fuel, Harte said solar cells--photovoltaics--are now so efficient that only 1/20th of the land area would be needed, and Patzek said technology is now even more efficient.

Harte called for tax incentives for the solar and wind energy industries. "The encouragement of clean energy through incentives is the best way to do it," he said.

"We have a judiciary here in the pocket of the elite of this country," said Thorlby in a telephone interview recorded for Thursday night's program. "I call it the scum of the country."

"Millions and millions of hectares" have been usurped, he said, to make way for an unsustainable agriculture enforced by armed gangs. "You could call it Neanderthal, but I have more respect for our ancestors," he said.

Environmentally devastating, the sugar cane super-plantations "put an end to the culture of the society," he said.

Thorlby received the Brazilian government's Human Rights Award for Elimination of Slave Labor in 2003.

Alice Friedemann, a science journalist who specializes in energy issues, said her special concern was with destruction of soil and water caused by mass planting of corn, currently the dominant source of ethanol in the United States.

The writer said she was troubled "by the lack of any kind of input by social scientists" in the BP proposal. "Their voice needs to be heard."

Friedemann also cited three decades of lobbying by agricultural industry leader Archer Daniels Midland--a firm that holds patents on many crops--calling for development of ethanol-based based fuels. "Ethanol will bankrupt our soils," she said.

Why attack those who are trying to find solutions?

Good question. Let me reword that sentence. "Why critique proposals for solutions?" The answer to that question is obvious. Critique and peer review are the backbone of the scientific method, without them you can't find the wheat for the chaff. This wasn't an attack nor is it directed at those who wrote the report. It is a critique of the ideas in the report, not the reporters. Surely you are not proposing an end to peer review and critique for authors with good intentions.

I absolutely support peer review. If you find a peer review analysis which disagrees with the report you attacked, could you link to it?

Patzek, one of the nation's leading critics of the rush to biofuels, said conservation, including alternative forms of transit, is one solution, while production of the nation's total energy needs from biofuels would require the sacrifice of all the nation's crops and two-thirds of the annual growth of its forests.

Can you find Patzek's assertion somewhere in a recent peer-review report? I believe some of his older work was peer-review, but his recent work appears to have a harder time getting through peer review, or perhaps he no longer submits it. Harte doesn't publish on policy, so far as I know. I look forward to reading a more detailed analysis of how switching to biofuels will produce climate change. I don't think that anyone is advocating that all of the energy we get come from plants.

Every report of biofuels I've ever read supports improved efficiency and reduced driving, though people in policy can be forgiven their skepticism that the latter will occur without major policy change. Or even with. A few of the people I know are reducing their flying slowly, but others are increasing their flying rapidly.

Also, I've never read a peer-reviewed report on biofuels which sees corn- and sugar-based biofuels as anything but a temporary solution. It is always important to distinguish cellulosic biofuels grown to protect the soil from our current system. Ah, the point of the report you attacked.

The reality is that we need to get much of our energy from sources other than wind, solar, geothermal (not technically renewable), and improved efficiency. National Research Council's just published report says that the increase in wind power between now and 2022 cannot keep pace with the increase in electricity generation. The most savings can come from improved efficiency, with wind a powerful second. Let us hope that a sizable amount of the promise of cellulosic biofuels and other low GHG-emitting sources is realized.

Karen Street

I absolutely support peer review.

I will alert the media.

If you find a peer review analysis which disagrees with the report you attacked, could you link to it?

I will be happy to send you word of any officially sanctioned peer review of the paper you attacked the critique of, whether it disagrees with all aspects, some aspects or none of the aspects of the report.

Can you find Patzek's assertion somewhere in a recent peer-review report?

I assume you are talking about this assertion:

[P]roduction of the nation's total energy needs from biofuels would require the sacrifice of all the nation's crops and two-thirds of the annual growth of its forests.

Better yet, can you find recent peer reviewed work (or any work) saying otherwise?

I look forward to reading a more detailed analysis of how switching to biofuels will produce climate change.

You are skeptical that the conversion of tropical carbon sinks to grow soya, sugarcane, palm oil or any other form of cellulose for that matter might actually increase greenhouse gas emissions? Conversion of carbon sinks to monocrops is a big driver of greenhouse gas emissions. Finding peer reviewed studies documenting this should be easy. Others are finally recognizing the destructiveness of biofuels that Monbiot and myself have been writing about for almost two years now. However, most still have it backwards. The destructiveness is the present reality. Sustainability and environmental benigness is a future, hoped for potential.

Every report of biofuels I've ever read supports improved efficiency. Also, I've never read a peer-reviewed report on biofuels which sees corn- and sugar-based biofuels as anything but a temporary solution.

This is the old "bridge fuel" argument, which hangs entirely on the hope that cellulosic fuels will be cheaper. The market profit margin (unless the government interferes) picks what gets turned into agrofuels. We can hope these monocrops will be replaced by less destructive technology but there is no guarantee of that. Sugarcane and palm oil are more productive than cellulose, the Amazon and Cerrado are vast, rainforests in Africa and Indonesia are going under the plow as I write.

It is always important to distinguish cellulosic biofuels grown to protect the soil from our current system. Ah, the point of the report you attacked

First, we have yet to make any commercially viable agrofuel from cellulosic. I critiqued the report for:

1. Putting stars on fuels that are more environmentally destructive than fossil fuels.
   
2. Ignoring a fatal flaw in the plan, the fact that people will grow sustainably certified fuels on one plot of land while plowing under adjacent land to grow food or other crops to make up for the land lost to the certified agrofuel monocrops (leakeage).

The reality is that we need to get much of our energy from sources other than wind, solar, geothermal

True, but placing our bets on agrofuels that usurp the surface, biodiversity, and natural resources of the planet isn't necessarily a wise thing to do. Missing from your list are other futuristic technologies, improvements in solar in particular, which holds as much or more promise for power than cellulosic, without destroying biodiversity or exacerbating runoff, and water consumption. Even today's expensive inefficient solar panels can convert ten times more of the sun's energy into power than plants. They make a good analogy for cellulosic energy in that they are too expensive at present, and there is hope that they one day will be more feasible. URGE2.

Let us hope that a sizable amount of the promise of cellulosic biofuels and other low GHG-emitting sources is realized

Agreed, as long as the preservation of biodiversity is a part of that promise.


In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Do domestic biofuels compete with food crops? Yes.
Do they significantly reduce CO2 emissions? Yes.

Do they significantly reduce CO2 emissions? Yes.

I guess it depends on what your definition of "significantly" is. If it means by more than 50% on a life-cycle basis, only biofuels made from waste materials do at the moment in the USA.

Brazilian ethanol does not come from cane grown on rainforest land, and its reductions in CO2 emissions, by some estimates, are greater than 70%.

Most US corn ethanol on a life-cycle basis does not surpass a 50% improvement in CO2 emissions. Moreover, by displacing soybeans (acreage down 11% this year), corn's frenetic planting (up 15% this year) is shifting more production of soybeans to South America, including the Amazon.

But then again, there is always lipodiesel.

These are only my personal opinions.