The Berkeley team warned about the land-use-change bogeyman ("LUC" in shorthand) in a pair of lengthy reports submitted to California authorities last year. But only this month did the team report the startling, if preliminary, numbers. Current wisdom in California says gasoline produces about 92 grams of carbon dioxide for every megajoule of energy produced; ethanol is reckoned to be slightly cleaner at 75.9 grams. But the land-use penalty alone from growing more biofuel crops could add as much as 140 grams/MJ--a "really enormous" number, professors Farrell and O'Hare wrote.
http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2008/01/23/more ...
http://greyfalcon.net/landuse

But, I thought that one of the benefits of moving to something like switchgrass is that it grows kind of like a weed on ground that is otherwise too rocky, steep or otherwise unsuited for agriculture (or many other plants).  In effect, I thought that planting switchgrass in proper areas would not remove carbon from the ground.

(Of course, this is still hypothetical because cellulosic ethanol is not yet viable.)

Andrew Eisenberg
The gateway project is wrong---http://www.livableregion.ca

But, I thought that one of the benefits of moving to something like switchgrass is that it grows kind of like a weed on ground that is otherwise too rocky, steep or otherwise unsuited for agriculture (or many other plants).  In effect, I thought that planting switchgrass in proper areas would not remove carbon from the ground.

And what are the chances that

1. You can harvest that easily
   
2. There is logistics set up in that area to use it

Especially since the distribution logistics of cellulosic materials is absolutely critical.

http://i-r-squared.blogspot.com/2007/03/logistics-problem ...
http://i-r-squared.blogspot.com/2006/11/cellulosic-ethano ...

_

Additionally, it doesn't make sense that if you are going to switch existing corn ethanol refineries to be cellulosic, that they would be able to take advantage of anything but what is planted locally.

How could something this obvious have been left out? A beautiful example of the power of group think.

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

Thousands of years of stored carbon was trapped in the 20 feet of prairie soil.  Now it's in the atmosphere, for the most part.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

My biofuel vision (a not yet really educated guess) is something like that: No artificial fertilizers. 2 crops planted in parallel: A) Some legume (peanut or jatropha) to harvest oil (bio diesel) and for green manuring. B) Some grass to produce wood gas and wood oil in fancy pyrolysis processors (could be good olde wood gas driven automobiles, home heating, chemical industry, ...). The left over charcoal is to be put back into the ground (terra preta).

So, no bio alcoholing, no biogassing, but doing charcoal!

Millions of years to recapture the biodiversity lost in the conversion of natural ecosytems to energy plantations (assuming man is long extinct).  

8 months to keep pandering for corn ethanol votes.  Priceless.  

OK. A confirmation of what several of us have been screaming about.  Now, will Congress and Pelosi, or Hillary and Obama get the message?  Or are we going to have to keep screaming?  

My guess, our leaders will reinforce their fallibilities by proving the old adage -- when you are in a rut, keep digging. I can hear them reflecting the industry line:

Industry groups, like the Renewable Fuels Association, immediately attacked the new studies as "simplistic," failing "to put the issue into context."

"While it is important to analyze the climate change consequences of differing energy strategies, we must all remember where we are today, how world demand for liquid fuels is growing, and what the realistic alternatives are to meet those growing demands," said Bob Dineen, the group's director, in a statement following the Science reports' release.

"Biofuels like ethanol are the only tool readily available that can begin to address the challenges of energy security and environmental protection," he said.

Given the relentless plunder and conspicuous over-consumption of Earth's resources we are seeing in our time, choosing not to plunder and fasting might be a bit too much to hope for.

Perhaps 2008 will be the year when human beings agree to do what is humane and necessary to begin voluntarily restraining themselves from literally "eating the family of humanity out of house and home."

Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population, established 2001
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/

Get biogas from the biomass, like dead wood that poses a high fire danger in drought stricken areas and prairie grass that would normally burn.  Return the cellulose and organic fertlizer left over to the soil.

That reduces fire and increases the efficiency of the biosystem at conversion of sunlight into biomass, allowing land/soil to sequester more carbon out of the atmosphere.  And also burn less up into the atmosphere.

I think Hillary already understands the problems with ethanol, she has her eyes open to the plugin hybrid alternative.  Barack is too busy attacking Hillary while trying to appear to be the one under attack to pay attention to nuance like this.

The lobbyist party line is to see ethanol from corn as a transition to ethanol from cellulose.  i have heard it from my own congressman's staff.  We diss corn ethanol, they say, yeah but cellulosic ethanol, there's the good part.

As we see here, corn, sugar cane, or cellulose, burning biomass in gas guzzlers produces twice the GHG of burning oil.

Plugin hybrids charged on renewable energy can reduce liquid fuel use and GHG from vehicles by 90% on average.  Meanwhile a Peterbilt hybrid semi is in the works.  Power it with recharge strips under highway?  Maybe.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/02/toyota-1x-plug.ht ...

What about this new Toyota hypercar (ultra lightweight, ultra efficient as Amory Lovins has proposed) plugin hybrid?  Is Toyota finally getting it?  We'll see if it goes into mass production.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

One can come up with biofuel chains that look really bad on a full fuel chain basis, and one can also come up with biofuel chains that look really good on a full fuel chain basis.  And this is true even without getting to cellulosics.  Corn is very fertilizer intensive and - since it doesn't come "packaged" with much in the way of non-carbohydrate, it is also very energy intensive to process into ethanol.  Sorghum, by contrast is much less fertilizer intensive and contains quite a bit of non-fermentable biomass, such that you could run a sorghum-ethanol plant with no purchased fossil fuel, just burning the extra biomass.  (This is essentially the way sugar mills work, burning the bagasse, and the way paper mills work, burning the lignin in the wood chips that isn't separated as fiber).  

Bottom line - the analysis may be right for a given set of assumptions, but that doesn't justify a tarring of all biofuels with the same brush.

Nuance won't put that carbon back into the soil, only conservation will.  Restore carbon sinks, use renewable electricity for transportation energy.

No matter how hedge funds trade carbon or farm land or biofuel, it won't make that carbon go back into the soil.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

Anyone interested in reading more from on this, should check out this Q&A with Joe Fargione - one of the lead authors of The Nature Conservancy/University of Minnesota study.

(I won't go into the fact that the Mr. O'Donnell failed to cite the the study as coming from The University of Minnesota AND The Nature Conservancy. I'm sure it was an honest mistake) ;-)

"Processing biomass through a distributed network of fast pyrolyzers may be a sustainable platform for producing energy from biomass.

http://agron.scijournals.org/cgi/content/full/100/1/178

Fast pyrolyzers thermally transform biomass into bio-oil, syngas, and charcoal. The syngas could provide the energy needs of the pyrolyzer. Bio-oil is an energy raw material (~17 MJ kg-1) that can be burned to generate heat or shipped to a refinery for processing into transportation fuels. Charcoal could also be used to generate energy; however, application of the charcoal co-product to soils may be key to sustainability. Application of charcoal to soils is hypothesized to increase bioavailable water, build soil organic matter, enhance nutrient cycling, lower bulk density, act as a liming agent, and reduce leaching of pesticides and nutrients to surface and ground water."

And sequester that carbon in the soil...

Erik


The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

http://www.grist.org/news/2008/02/08/biofu/index.html

The time has come to start designing the tankless infrastructure of the future.  We'll drive the earth right over the edge if we try to make flex fuel vehicles the cars of the future.  The pressures on remaining natural ecosystems were massive enough even before we added the unnecessary burden of biofuels.  

We can say without hesitation that the US energy policy with all its counterproductive features is threatening the future of life on earth.  
And we are all part of it.    

http://www.frepubtra.blogspot.com

.

   Transportation isn't even the second largest CO2 emitter.  
Industrial processes are.   The largest CO2 emitter of the industrial
processes is concrete making even though the energy used is less.  
The first step in concrete making is heating limestone [calcium
carbonate] to drive off the carbon dioxide to make calcium oxide.  
Coal is burned to make the heat, but the limestone is the greater
source of CO2.   Other industrial processes include steel making,
metal casting, etc.

   The easiest way to make the biggest reduction in CO2 emissions
is to convert all coal fired power plants to nuclear.   So get over
your paranoid fears of all things nuclear and get it done.

Coal is defined as a readily combustible rock containing more than 50% by weight of carbon.  Coals other constituents include hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, ash, and sulfur.  Some of the undesirable chemical constituents include chorine and sodium.

Possibly the best Alternative Energy blog I read: New Energy and Fuel

Actually, that is exactly what these studies do. The only biofuels being produced today not tarred by this brush are those made from waste because they are the only ones not displacing carbon sinks. Land use change is the weak link.

This isn't another case of different corn ethanol researchers finding different answers about energy balance simply because they used different assumptions. Researchers have simply ignored land use change until now.

You mentioned in another comment that your  company has installed cogeneration in corn ethanol plants in the past few years ("...the company I ran up until last year has done backpressure turbines at ethanol plants to generate power.")

Is it planning to install cogeneration in other corn ethanol refineries? How much money are we talking about here? Is it possible that your support of corn ethanol is more than coincidental, that it may be the result of subconscious rationalization bias? Your arguments in support of corn ethanol certainly are not any better than others I'v seen:

"...been too much pure ethanol bashing on Grist for my taste ...they all get written [studies bashing corn ethanol energy balance] by the same small handful of academics who get podiums much bigger than the scientific consensus warrants ..."

There are reasons there are no biofuel producers on this planet who are going to voluntarily walk away from their investments.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon him not understanding." --Upton Sinclair

This is going to be a power struggle between moneyed interests on one side and informed environmentalists (now being fully backed by science) on the other, as usual.

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

But a lot of environmental losses will have taken place by the time version 2.0 is here.  And to keep the pipelines filled, version 1.0 will have to stay in place for a very long time as version 2.0 is phased in. So, the planet has to continue taking a big hit of heroin until we can get it on a dose of methadone.  We are so fucked!  

Industry shills like Bob Dineen state that we have now grown so dependent on ethanol that the global warming costs have to be considered "in context".  
I guess we are going to continue to suffer with the "context" our leaders in Washington see vs. the "context" of  the biosphere.  Will we push ahead to double the output of corn ethanol or will we call for a moratorium on future corn ethanol development?  

We need to extend the debate about our addiction to oil to our addiction to all liquid fuels.  The answer is not to continue growing the supply but to begin dismantling the infrastructure built on liquid fuels and replacing it with wisely designed systems that largely free us from pumps. nozzles and internal combustion.  

Alternative fuels in unsustainable systems only perpetuate and ratchet up the technological dependency on unsustainable systems.  Ethanol is a prime example of technocratic muddling -- allowing bad design to dictate our future.  In this context, we are not free men.

http://edro.wordpress.com/2008/02/05/drying-aquifers-sink ...

A few critical facts have been left out from the discussion of this Science study.

1. Switchgrass and other potential feedstock sources for cellulosic ethanol can be planted without negative impact on abandoned farmland (of which there is something like 200 million acres in the U.S.). The problem discussed in the study comes from converting native grasslands or forests to switchgrass... NOT from planting on land which was previously used as farmland. When people leave out important facts like this, all credibility is lost.

2. There is no discussion in the report about using wood harvested sustainably from forests as a feedstock for cellulosic ethanol... clearly, because this is not a problem.

On the other hand, I think the issues raised by this study are vitally important and need to be headed. Clearing forests to produce biofuels; converting savannah and native grasslands; even converting abandoned farmland to corn ethanol, are all problematic and should not be utilized.

Let's try to keep the facts straight.

Coskata and other companies are on track to produce cellulosic ethanol at $1.00 per gallon. While questions remain, this could well turn into an important component of the renewable energy mix of the future.

Conversion of cropland to monocrop switchgrass, fertlized with fossil derived fertilizer (don't kid yourself that is the real technique that will be used for fuel farming, no matter what assurances you hear now, before the fuel farms get up and running), won't restore the carbon sink activity of the stripped soil.

That land needs to be restored to conservation land as a real carbon sink, as natural prairie grass is.  Some of the cellulose could be harvested for energy, but not to guzzle as gas.  Around a third of the grass every year could be used to produce biogas and fertilizer/soil amendment.  Mowed in such a way to prevent fires.  

Similarly, dead wood could be cleaned up to prevent forest fires and chipped up for paper and chip board, the rotted portion fed into biodigestors, making more clean kwh from the biogas, producing organic fertlizer that returns carbon to the soil and builds it back up.  

A new Civilian Conservation Corps could get back the logging jobs lost by bottomline corporate forest mismanagement.  Respond to climate change drought before it turns into forest firestorm.  The valuable byproducts paying the conservation workers.

Should war be the employment of last resort in the USA, as it has become in africa?  Or should we go back to FDRs new deal plan?  I say we have a new deal.  Where conservation projects and wind farm building, instead of dam building, give kids a better option than crusading for  oil empire.

Why not make ethanol from the cellulose?  Because it doesn't produce fertilizer and recycle waste water into clean water as biodigestion of the waste stream and biomass can.

Instead it uses huge amounts of water and can only replace 15% of oil based gas guzzling.  That's all the truly green (only the fraction of biomass that would otherwise burn in fires) cellulose could supply.

Finally the biogas can be used in distributed (waste heat captured for local heating needs) solid oxide fuel cell/turbine power plants.  At three times the efficiency of normal centralized power plants.  

100 of these distributed systems on farms and at landfills, using the biogas, provide much more secure grid backup than one centralized nuclear or fossil fuel plant.

Why burn up liquid fuel in an internal combustion gas guzzler at 6% effiency?  That's the foolish result of making ethanol from the cellulose.  Only a fraction of 1% of the energy in the ethanol moves the weight of the driver and passenger.

Try a plugin hybrid hypercar like the one from Toyota charged up on renewable electricity from a smart grid backed up by biogas from that biomass.  Much better result.

The new Toyota plugun hybrid hypercar.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2008/2/8/3 ...

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

Let's try to keep the facts straight.
Coskata and other companies are on track to produce cellulosic ethanol at $1.00 per gallon.

Coskata doesn't expect to hit that magical $1.00 price point until 2016.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2008-01-13-gm-ethanol ...

8 years from now.

That doesn't really sound "on track" to me.

What you posted was your agenda and a lot of unsubstantiated gibberish. If you want to document your statements with independent studies and facts (not links to statements from your colleagues who hold similar views), please do so. Otherwise, know there are few people (who are in positions to effect what actually happens) who take your statements seriously.

I could go through your statements one by one and point to spin, agenda, and twisted logic, but it's simply not worth my time.

My goal here was simply to clarify a few facts regarding the initial post and a few follow ups to that. This done, I'll now move on.

Way back when the Minnesota prarie study came out last year (finding 1.8 tons of cO2 per acre per year carbon sink storage), we started pointing out how fuel farming robs the carbon sink soil ecosystem.

Switchgrass crops without negatively effecting the carbon balance?  Using that land to produce fuel, instead of returning carbon from the atmosphere to the soil.  That produces the negative balance up front.  Releasing millenia of stored carbon in a few short years of fuel farming.  It destroys an ecosystem with chemical monocrop.

Harvesting a fraction of cellulose from forests and prairie, that would otherwise burn in wild fires, and recycling it with biodigestion, while at the same time storing the same amount of carbon in the natural soil ecosystyem is possible.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

I was VERY SPECIFIC... as was the Science study... in specifying that my point was relative to abandoned cropland only. What you did was to twist that into "prairie lands". There's no question that taking native prairie lands and converting those to any biofuel is not sustainable... at least with the current systems being discussed. But I was VERY SPECIFIC in NOT talking about that. Yet you twisted it around to say something different, because you have an agenda. This is how agenda's work. They twist what someone else is saying so that the speaker can feel "right".

If, in fact, you are stating that taking abandoned farmland and planting switchgrass must, by its nature, be a problem, then you are directly contradicting the results of the Science study. I am quite sure you have no evidence to support that conclusion.

It's best use to fight climate change is as a carbon sink, not a fuel farm.  Cellulosic ethanol or what have you, it all gets burned in very inefficient gas guzzlers.

Switchgrass for ethanol is not a crop that rehabilitates overused land.  Does it store more carbon than dust bowl chemical ag desert?  Well sure it does.  That doesn't make it better than restoring it to a natural state.

CCC work ought to commence to turn devestated chemical ag land into natural conservation land.  That's a very good 'new deal" type project.  make it so president Hillary, in memorial to FDR.

And make a thousand square miles or so into a new national park to honor Teddy Roosevelt, store carbon, host bison and other wildlife, and serve as a huge national wind farm site.  A Prairie National Park.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2006/2/9/1 ...

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

Biofuels from switchgrass, if they replace croplands and other carbon-absorbing lands, would result in 50 percent more greenhouse gas emissions.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/02/ ...

I could see why you like that particular article, as it uses the same deceitful tactics as you and your friends use. Namely, it incorrectly uses the phrase "croplands AND OTHER CARBON-ABSORBING LANDS". The latter could, of course, be anything, from prairie lands to intact forests. This is NOT what the Science study speaks to. It is specific in stating that there is not a problem using switchgrass on abandoned farmland. How could there be. Those lands have already largely lost their carbon sinking ability.

Again, when you are your friends twist words, it indicates you have an agenda that requires you to displace facts and replace them with personal gibberish to force your point.

Let's stick to facts.

It is specific in stating that there is not a problem using switchgrass on abandoned farmland. How could there be. Those lands have already largely lost their carbon sinking ability.

Genuine question: why would abandoned farmland lose its carbon-sinking ability? There's plenty of it around my way (the N. Carolina Piedmont), old cotton and tobacco fields mostly that generally have covered themselves in fast-growing pine and sweetgum within twenty years, getting ready if left to themselves to succession into mixed deciduous climax forest in fifty or so. There's no albedo effect to speak of - we get a a few days of snow cover every few years. There are vast amounts of self-supporting second-growth forest like this throughout the southeast. Isn't this a major chunk of the abandoned farmland we are talking of, and isn't it sinking carbon as we speak?

I don't pretend to be an expert in the bioprocesses involved, but here's my concern: seen as resources of low-value cellulosic fiber these huge acreages of abandoned land are clearly prime candidates for feedstock supply for a cellulosic ethanol boom (assuming the technology becomes actually viable). Quite apart from the habitat destruction and visual devastation that would come from the wholesale removal of this material for biofuel, and the loss of soil stabilization and regeneration from the natural forest cycle, wouldn't it also result in a major spike in carbon release that would take decades for the regenerating forest to reabsorb?

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

A recent issue of Nat Geographic showed what large swaths of North Dakota look like these days. Ghostly, largely abandoned farming towns, growing grasses, not trees. I think these are the sorts of places that an interim step of making liquid fuel from switchgrass could make sense.

Erik


The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

I don't know the actual breakdown in terms of the current state of abandoned farmland in this country, but I'm sure a meaningful percentage of it is already reverting to forest and other original habitats. On these lands, it seems to me, we'd need to be quite careful in how they are approached as potential feedstock sources. However, this certainly does not mean they can't be used to support the biofuel sector... it simply means (at least for forests) that they need to be managed sustainably.

I was recently invited to view a research forest plot in Vermont that was being sustainably harvested (by the University of Vermont) to measure impacts and yields. This forest was probably 30 years old. It had 65 tons of forested biomass per acre. They were removing 20 tons (mostly to alleviate over-crowding) specifically to be used as feedstock for energy. This is what a sustainable harvest looks like.

If you ever get a chance to visit the Menominee tribal forests in Wisconsin, you can see the effects of 150 years of sustainable forestry on 220,000 acres. I can only say that this forest is incredible in terms of health and productivity. Managing U.S. forests like this to produce forest products and energy would be a blessing (with, of course, leaving aside a significant percentage of our forests in a completely untouched state).

In terms of abandoned farmlands reverting back to native grasses and other non-forest habitat, the call to use those lands to grow switchgrass or other energy crops would need to be made on a case by case basis.... and always designed to minimize carbon storage losses. But I'd agree with you that in some cases, they would be better left in the state they are currently in.

Switchgrass and other potential feedstock sources for cellulosic ethanol can be planted without negative impact on abandoned farmland (of which there is something like 200 million acres in the U.S.)

I presume that this number comes from comparing current cropland with the total area of land that has ever been farmed, or the maximum amount ever farmed in a given year (a smaller number) -- either number I suspect includes a significant amount of land that was tilled to the dust bowl years, and never should have been. I presume also it includes highly erodible land on steep hillsides in Appalachia, which thankfully also is no longer being tilled on a large scale.

According to the NRCS's latest inventory of land use (outside of federally owned land), in 2003 the USA had 368 million acres classified as cropland. An additional 117 million acres was in pasture, and 405 million acres was considered rangeland. The rest was:

• forested land: 406 million acres
  
• developed land (i.e., large urban and built-up areas, small built-up areas, and land used for rural transportation): 108 million acres;
  
• covered with water: 50 million acres;
  
• covered with farmsteads and other farm structures, field windbreaks, barren land, or marshland: 50 million acres;
  
• enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP): 31.5 million acres.

Some 402 million acres was federal land, some of which is rented out as rangeland.

It is worth noting that between 1982 and 2003 there were significant changes in land use in only in a few categories. Basically, cropland area shrunk by 52 million acres, and the area of pastureland declined by 14 million acres. Over the same period, developed land increased by 35 million acres, and 32 million acres was enrolled in the CRP. The decline in cropland and pastureland (66 million acres) almost matches the increase in developed land (67 million acres). The other land uses have remained relatively stable.

The question that needs to be asked is: where would those 200 million acres come from, and what ecological services would the nation be giving up to use them?

Ah, but within the 368 million acres of cropland, 58 million acres are classified as "non-cultivated". But that is not, for the most part, land just waiting to be farmed. According to the NRCS's glossary, this land "includes permanent hay land and horticultural cropland." Hmm, not much land to be diverted to growing biofuels there -- unless the idea is to reduce the hay fed to farm animals, and the fruits and vegetables fed to people.

How about the 31.5 million acres enrolled in the CRP? That's cropland! For the sake of argument, let's ignore some of the environmental consequences of ending the CRP and count that.

That still leaves around 170 million acres to come from somewhere. One hundred and seventy million acres is a lot of land. It is 45% more than the total amount of pastureland available, and equivalent to more than 40% of the total amount of land currently under forest cover.

It is also 40% of the land considered rangeland. Some rangeland is, indeed, suitable for growing native grasses (and may have been once farmed -- before the dust bowl forced people off of it), but the category also includes "many wetlands, some deserts, and tundra". Moreover, "[c]ertain communities of low forbs and shrubs, such as mesquite, chaparral, mountain shrub, and pinyon-juniper, are also included as rangeland." That does not sound like "abandoned farmland".

So, please provide us with more details, RD Miller. What land do you have in mind converting to growing biofuels? Is that land currently sequestering carbon? What is its value to wildlife (not to mention scenic beauty)? If some of it is now used for forestry, how much of those forest products are already being counted on to fuel a new generation of biomass-fired power plants?

These are only my personal opinions.

Let me be clear... my personal interests lie with forests. I'm not promoting switchgrass or any similar energy crop. I've simply been responding to incorrect statements here and trying to explain what I have come to understand as the arguments by those in the biofuels sector.

I have read the 200 million acre figure in several places, but I don't know the details of it. It may be high... it may be low. But you can be sure folks in the biofuel area are focused on using some of it. They may use it responsibly... they may not. Time will tell.

My interests lie in the 400 million forested acres you stated and the "conversion" of former forested land back to forests.

Fell for it again?  Hard to believe.

This shows how difficult explaining these issues can be.  Imagine explaining it to Barack supporters, or Barack himself?  They aren't interested.

And he's winning! Caucuses yet to go and his team packs the caucuses with youngsters.  It's looking like more fuel farming, nuclear plants, and clean coal.

No, North Dakota drought and chemical ag stricken farm lands need to be restored to prairie.  No "interim" gas guzzling is going to be helpfull.


http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

I repeat: you wrote

Switchgrass and other potential feedstock sources for cellulosic ethanol can be planted without negative impact on abandoned farmland (of which there is something like 200 million acres in the U.S.) [my emphasis]

The last time I looked, switchgrass is not a tree. But maybe what you really meant to say was:

Trees for cellulosic ethanol can be grown without negative impact on abandoned farmland (of which there is something like 200 million acres in the U.S.), much of which has since reverted back to forest.

Perhaps. But the trees growing in most of the nation's private forest land already have economic value. If they may some day have greater economic value as a feedstock for liquid fuels, and less is available for pulp, timber and fuel for power plants, so be it.

But the market has NOT been left to itself: Congress has passed legislation mandating minimum levels of biofuels, mainly ethanol, including specific minimum volumes for cellulosic ethanol. That skews the allocation of resources to that use. Moreover, both the federal government and many state governments subsidize the construction of cellulosic ethanol plants and the production of fuel -- at a combined rate of over $1.00 per gallon (over $1.40 per gallon of gasoline equivalent).

Given that is the case, any raitionale for both mandating cellulosic ethanol use and subsidizing it has to stand up to scrutiny.

Scrutiny is, I thought, what Gristmill was about.

These are only my personal opinions.

Three questions remain though: the first is whether energy feedstock is the most appropriate and climate-neutral use of that biomass to meet human need; the second is whether the production of liquid fuels is the most efficient energy use of that biomass, and third is can our voracious appetite for liquid fuels, which borders on the limitless excesses we attach to heroin abuse, be trusted to extract forest biomass in the selective and expensive manner associated with these limited scale projects.

From my current understanding of the situation I would answer: maybe, no, and no.

1. Forest thinnings also have numerous other uses some of which, such as construction booard materials, include long-term climate-positive carbon sequestration, while energy feedstock use can only offer carbon neutrality at best.

2. Forest thinnings which are not appropriate for climate-positive use may indeed be well utilized in energy production but even the most optimistic projections for cellulosic ethanol would seem to show far less efficiency than, for example, electrical co-gen.

3. We seem to have gotten ourselves into a very dangerous situation where we will do anything for a fix of gasohol. Look at our record and tell me how you think we'll manage to stay away from the forestry equivalent of MTR coal extraction.

The moment of truth will come when we finally realize that we can kick that nasty habit.

Not unless the economic structure is radically changed.  We are still at the stage of pretending that "alternative fuel" will somehow relieve us of moral duty, when "alternative fuel" will, in itself, do nothing to stop the world of global capitalism from consuming 85 million barrels of oil every day, but will merely supplement the oil-consumption habit.

http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

If that were not the case, there would not be a big industry selling fertilizer to people who do not mulch or composte their lawn clippings.

These are only my personal opinions.

Here's what I know from some 25 years working on sustainable forestry issues.

1. A very large portion of our forests are in poor health due to poor harvesting practices over the past 100 years (primarily, high-grading and conversion of natural forests to monocultures). This doesn't mean there isn't a great deal of biomass there... it just means these forests are not nearly as healthy as they could be. We need markets for low-grade trees in order to reverse the cycle of "removing the best and leaving the rest." Whether that market is for cellulosic ethanol, direct combustion to produce electricity, paper, building products, firewood, pellets... those answer are not clear. Many factors will determine this outcome. In the end, some bad choices will be made, as well as many good ones. But if cellulosic ethanol technology can produce inexpensive, renewable liquid fuel, and should there be a good reason to use this product over others, it'll come about. I don't know the answer to this yet, and I doubt anyone else does for certain as of yet.

2. A lot of abandoned farmland could be turned back into productive forests which could be managed sustainably to produce a wide range of products, as well as rich biodiversity and other non-economic values.

3. If the extraction of woody biomass from intact forests is left to the conventional forest products industry, without adequate market controls, we could be facing a disaster. I am very concerned about this. But it doesn't have to go this way. I know there are quite a few groups working to make sure this doesn't happen. I'm involved in that effort as well. Let's hope and work toward success... and stay vigilant for anything else.

This argues for smaller operations, regional scale projects for making liquid fuel, if one were to go that route. It's too much to assume that an activity like making liquid fuels will always be an idustrial scale proposition, just because it's currently such.

Erik

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

If we want biomass to convert to energy, why not just mow a portion of the natural grases.  No fertilizer or irrigation needed.

please don't guzzle it as gas at 6% though.  Biodigest it, harvest the renewable, easily storable biogas for renewable grid backup (at 70%+ efficiency).  Return the fertilizer and soil ammendment left in the biodigestor back into the soil ecosystem.  Forget ethanol.

And use plugin hybrids instead of gas guzzlers.

And by all means add in a lot of cellulose from dead wood putting forests at risk of GHG related firestorms.  But put the fertilizer back into the forest soil, along with replanting naturally drought resistant plants.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

Plus, the biofuel route takes us further down the road of managing the face of the earth with more applied resources and energy vs. learning to live in balance with relatively self sustaining natural ecosystems that do not rely on the inputs of man's constant tinkering and the application of fossil fuel energy to sustain them yet benefit man with priceless ecological services.  

The ecological and environmental impacts of stripping forest lands of their "waste" undergrowth would certainly need to be extensively researched before blundering into these "underutilized" systems.  What is "waste" almost certainly adds biodiversity to many forests.  

The time to really consider biofuels as a potential alternative is when we have designed, engineered and developed systems that have already reduced their oil consumption by something approaching 80% compared with our current standard.  The biggest threat from biofuel proponents derives from the false promise that we can continue to maintain and grow an extremely wasteful system with what?  More waste?  

Land: Again, the promise of vast acreages of "marginal" lands are proposed for switchgrass production.  But guess what?  These marginal lands are not going to produce the magical numbers of tons of biomass per acre that proponents often cite.  Much of this land is arid or semi arid.  Much is of inherently low productivity.  And very importantly, much of it is far removed and scattered from potential ethanol production plant sites which meet the production requirements (rail transport, water supply, energy supply, etc.).  

Perhaps he's confusing acres for dry tons.
http://bioweb.sungrant.org/Technical/Biomass+Resources/Fo ...

Perlack 2005 for instance pegs it at 220 million dry tons.
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2005/05/the_billionton_.h ...

Then again, there are quite a few assumptions that go into that report that are a bit loopy.
http://greyfalcon.net/perlack

Also one then also has to consider distribution logistics at play.
http://i-r-squared.blogspot.com/2007/03/logistics-problem ...
http://i-r-squared.blogspot.com/2006/11/cellulosic-ethano ...

One also has to consider if even the current practice is sustainable.
http://greyfalcon.net/notwaste

"Vogel's results will not please ecologists who want to restore prairie ecosystems by growing mixtures of grasses without fertilisers, and use the cellulose they produce to make ethanol. "It just takes too much land," argues Vogel, who calculated that fertilised switchgrass monocultures will give higher yields per hectare."

So they claim it is necessary to use chemical ag monoculture, meaning herbicide and GMO 'cide resistant switch grass?  

Furthermore this hints, since natural prairie is to a large extent natural switchgrass,that it is a suitable alternative.  Maybe with far less tractor fuel and oil based chemicals used a better fuel ratio.  A very much better end energy ratio if used for biogas and organic fertilizer production.

The ethanol GHG increase is prohibitive anyway.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

...big swaths of prairie grass would also be a nice thing for prairie chickens to hide in and for pronghorn and bison to munch on.

The Orion Grassroots Network: 1,200+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more

You do realize that plug-ins use electricity that is mostly derived from coal! Nuclear power is filthy,dangerous,and a magnet for terrorist.Plus when water levels drop in draught areas nuclear power plants have to shut down,as in Alabama this past summer.
 There is no free lunch.Every energy source has some fault,even wind power and bird migrations.Although wind power is the most benign.It still takes raw materials to build them.

Why not ask why!?

Jim Kunstler, speaking at the Oct. 2007 Assn. for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO) conference in Houston noted an odd transformation --- noting that somehow, the main job of environmentalists has become figuring out how to keep everybody's car going.  Threads like this one just make Kunstler's point.

And if you point out that none of their "alternative energies" will stop the burning of even ONE barrel of oil, they just ignore you.  Enjoy the hot weather, fools!

http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus

Erik I think we really do need a Prairie National Park.  And a whole lot of prairie land restored as carbon sink and biomass resource.  If only the amount that normally burns is harvested in such a way as to prevent fires.

Amory lovins showed off his home on "Six Degrees" tonight on the National Geographic channel.  It uses 120 watts, one tenth the normal home power use.  Including heating/cooling.  Solar panels on the roof supply more than that power use, supplying a surplus to the grid.

With this kind of design and retrofit of buildings, hypercar plugin hybrids like the new Toyota, and the rest of the renewable energy sources, why even wonder about nuclear power or coal or fuel farming.  Just forget it.  

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

Like smart grid technology for instance.  Too bad, but I think any positive news on the green front tends to annoy him.  Perpetual self-admitted curmudgeon that he is.

Beware oil industry analysts and consultants.  Self deception is necessary to cash their checks.

I do enjoy his blog though.  Someone tell him the amish are using solar panels, please?  Hehey.  That will further depress him.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

You do realize that plug-ins use electricity that is mostly derived from coal!

Yeah.  Guess it's a good thing that even if you use the dirtiest coal available, it's STILL greener than driving a normal car.
http://greyfalcon.net/plugins7

Every energy source has some fault,even wind power and bird migrations.

Not really, if you use any sort of objective scientific perspective.
http://greyfalcon.net/windstudy
http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story?id=48 ...

Noted, there are 3 facilities in California which use ancient windmill tech,
http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11935&pag ...
http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11935&pag ...

and those account for nearly all the windmill bird deaths in the US.
http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11935&pag ...

http://www.currykerlinger.com/windpower.htm

They were referred to some time ago in Gristmill, on the subject of bird mortality as a consequence of wind turbines.

I had the pleasure to meet Paul Kerlinger once: truly a dedicated naturalist and ornithologist.  He knows and loves his birds, all of them, by no means only raptors, who oddly are the only birds considered in the study to which you link us.  He certainly does not like the idea of bird deaths resulting from human technology.  And yet, on balance, he and his colleague do not consider wind turbines to be a big problem, if they are sited with care.

The decision to build wind turbines, knowing that some birds and bats will be killed as a result, is perhaps comparable to Dick Cheney's project to have all US citizens inoculated for small pox in late 2001, knowing that statistics guaranteed there would be a considerable number of deaths.  But then again, pretty much all tall buildings with glass windows kill birds.  So, where do we begin?

At least it is good when we pay attention to what we are doing, and to what what we are doing will mean.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

I don't post here often because I find there's an underlying agenda from folks like amazingdrx, justlou, diodiversivist and others that undercuts the credibility of much of what they write. ...Keep on fooling yourself ...What you posted was your agenda and a lot of unsubstantiated gibberish ...know there are few people (who are in positions to effect what actually happens) who take your statements seriously ...Your agenda blinds you ...because you have an agenda. This is how agenda's work ...I could see why you like that particular article, as it uses the same deceitful tactics as you and your friends use ...Again, when you are your friends twist words, it indicates you have an agenda that requires you to displace facts and replace them with personal gibberish to force your point.

And from another thread (where your penchant for strawmen was exposed):

At some point, you'll begin to realize that posts like yours are actually the worst kind of "pollution" on this planet. You have personal work to do. You do not serve the Earth through vicious attacks like your post against Mr. Khosla ...Pay Attention, Please ...It's difficult to engage in meaningful conversation here if those who post in response to others simply insert their own agendas and pay no attention to what has been written ...Do you not understand the definition of sustainable forestry as defined by the FSC (Forest Stewardship Council)? If not... as is obviously the case...please educate yourself before responding ...Once again, another person responding with their own agenda...one which pays little attention to what others have written. It's really impossible to have effective dialogue like this ..It's that agenda again ...It's too bad some sort of personal agenda makes it difficult for you to fairly consider new and different viewpoints ...You might want to consider cutting out the coffee breaks ...There are so many problems with this post that it's hard to know where to start

I've never seen so many insults strung together in just two threads. I think you may hold the Gristmill record.

The last time I saw a guy this obnoxious was when I first started criticizing biodiesel. Cellulosic is different in that it does not yet exist, so arguing about its pros and cons isn't very productive. I would suggest that government should generously fund research but should not distort markets with mandates and subsidies.

You have used the word "agenda" about 20 times in just two topics. Why don't you enlighten us as to what our hidden agendas are?


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

Having been deeply involved in the environmental movement for 30 years, I've seen this agenda many times before. It makes it difficult, if not impossible, to discuss issues on merit and fact.

Think President Bush. Why do you think he does what he does in the face of so many facts to the contrary? It's called a personal agenda.

If you could see beyond your agenda, you would see that your words against folks like me are degrading and dismissive.

It's not my nature to be offensive. But I will defend myself when the need arises.

Tone down your responses, listen to what others are saying (not agree... just really listen), and leave open the space to be wrong.

If you mean we won't compromise, that is not true.  We are willing to have reseach continue on ethanol and nuclear power and even clean coal.

But we are arguing that these technologies do not deserve to be subsidized or built out on a wide scale unless they can be proven safe, economically competitive (with renewables), non-contaminating, and GHG free.

We are claiming that better devices like plugin hybrid vehicles (bikes too), electric commuter trains and buses, geo heat exchange heating/cooling systems, solar panels, wind machines, wave machines, hydro power energy storage, biogas digestors all working through a smart grid can do the job right now.  While actually lowering gasoline and energy related costs and stabilizing energy cost related inflationary pressures that are wrecking the economy.

We are also contending that the green jobs created in the process will restore the US manufactuing and tax base.  Pulling us out of oil war caused recession.

This will also make the US independent of the oil that these oil wars are being fought over.  

I think we want to get this right.  What is wrong about that?  

Replace the mess we have now with this new energy paradigm over the next 20 years, half in 10 years.  That will reverse the worst effects of GHG climate disaster.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

I have two questions for those of you (including O'Donnell) that have bronzed this analysis:

1. How can you be so supportive of a study that is so blatantly not an apples to apples comparison? Searchinger et el add indirect/upstream impacts to biofuels, then compare that analysis to a petroleum baseline for which they do NOT add indirect impacts.  It's a total mechanical breakdown.

2. How can you say this is a biofuels "bombshell" when the primary assumption right out of the gate is 30 bgy of corn ethanol. We produce 8 bgy now. the federal energy bill stops at 15 bgy through 2022!!!!!

For the record, it is CLEARLY useful to "get it right" with regard to a carbon footprint for biofuels. But if we're going to go indirect on biofuels, let's go indirect on the other alternatives too dont you think? Especially if we are going to compare them.

You would think this community would have caught such a basic mechanical problem by this point in the thread.

How do you get around the fact that converting  the biomass to a fuel that is burned robs the soil of carbon?  Actually preventing it from acting as a natural carbon sink and releasing all the carbon stored over millenia of soil build up.

Just address this fact please.  Without vague ill-defined theory laden terminology like "upstream impacts".  

The cherished view of ethanol from biomass as a closed loop that doesn't add to CO2 in the atmosphere is fallacious.  Every acre that is used to grow fuel crop is an acre that doesn't remove CO2 from the atmosphere and store it in the soil.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

Cellulosic does not yet exist. Debate its ramifications as they become known, should it ever reach commercial viability. The debate today is about fuels being produced today. Swarming has nothing to do with it. The quality of your arguments is all that counts.

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

First, to RBColeman... thanks for your words. As near as I can tell, these are a bunch of kids whose hearts are well meaning and have a fire burning within. I understand that and actually appreciate it. In time, they'll learn how to debate respectfully, and in particular, really listen openly to others and consider budging from their stated positions when the facts so dictate. But you're right.. it is probably a waste of my time to hope this might occur now.

Let's make clear a few issues about my stated position. Don't mix my positions with others. LISTEN to what I say and then respond ONLY to what I say.

1. I do NOT support land use change, unless that change applies to abandoned farm land, involves planting that does not require excessive fertilizer (preferably none or only organic fertilizer) and water inputs, and grows something that is highly sustainable. The determination of whether this process is sustainable or not MUST be done by a group which has widespread support from major environmental groups (NRDC, Sierra Club, NWF, Greenpeace, etc.)

2. Sustainable forestry (at least as it is defined by the FSC) IS endorsed by every one of those above groups. Why? Because we know it is sustainable... meaning, the forest continues to grow as well OR BETTER after the harvesting takes place. We know this from studying forests that have been managed this way over the past 100-200 years. Carbon in the ground increases... biodiversity increases... people have jobs they love... rural communities benefit.

3. Cellulosic ethanol is coming. There are at least 100 companies working intensely on the subject, with billions of dollars invested. The science has been reviewed by established, reputable firms and they tell us it will work. Some very smart people are investing a lot of money into this, and their record of investing is very good. BUT, they need to do it right, and many people (like myself) will be watching carefully to see that they do. If they start to depend on poorly-chosen feedstocks or use production processes that are questionable, their investments will be at risk and many will speak out.

4. It is a fact that it is POSSIBLE to harvest biomass sustainably and turn it into energy. This could be done well and contribute in a large and positive manner to the energy issue, or it can be done poorly. We need to steer it in a positive direction. But arguing that it is inherently a bad idea is silly. If you continue to do this, it indicates you have an agenda... meaning, you're not willing to discuss facts; you're not willing to change your position; and you don't know how to find acceptable compromise with other human beings in a world that demands this.

1. The phrase "abandoned farmland" does not have the sex-appeal of "wilderness area" but nature does not differentiate between them in the way that bio-fuels enthusiasts do. We have yet to see evidence that fuel farming will not inevitably diminish the carbon sequestration currently supplied by this "waste" land. If you wish to successfully defend cellulosic ethanol in this forum, you will need to supply that evidence.

2. The concept of sustainable forestry has not been challenged here, at lea