Biofuels Not Enough to Offset Damage Caused by Deforestation
by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles on 08.18.07
A contentious topic that we've often seen batted around in policy circles and scientific forums over the past few months has concerned the long-term viability of biofuels — namely, is the trade-off inherent in converting ever larger tracts of forest to cropland worth it? We've expressed our own reservations about the merits of biofuels in the past but have remained somewhat open to the idea in the face of new research and ongoing developments taking place in the scientific and business communities. An article published in this week's issue of Science has helped rekindle our worries about the feasibility of a global biofuel energy market by claiming that no amount of biofuels can ever offset the environmental damage caused by the cutting down of forests to grow more crops.
Renton Righelato of the World Land Trust and Dominick Spracklen of the University of Leeds estimated that the initial cutting down of forests to plant more food crops, like corn and sugarcane, would release as much as 100 - 200 tons of carbon per hectare. They calculated that it would take between 50 and 100 years alone to compensate for these emissions by burning biofuels instead of fossil fuels — and that's assuming governments don't continue their rigorous regimen of deforestation. According to their best estimates, a 10% substitution of gasoline and diesel fuel would require 43% and 38% of current cropland alone in the United States and Europe, respectively. "We cannot afford that, in terms of climate change," said Righelato.
They also compared how much carbon could be stored by replanting forests with how much could be saved by consuming biofuels and found that reforestation would sequester 2 - 9 times as much carbon over the next 30 years than would be saved with biofuels (see chart above). Righelato and Spracklen thus argue that if the aim of switching to biofuels is to reduce the total amount of carbon emissions, "policy-makers may be better advised in the short term (30 years or so) to focus on increasing the efficiency of fossil fuel use, to conserve the existing forests and savannahs, and to restore natural forest and grassland habitats on cropland that is not needed for food."
While they concede that a biofuel derived from woody biomass could prove as effective as forests in sequestering carbon, they explain that — at this early stage of development — it is difficult to foresee exactly how much it will contribute to lowering emissions.
The researchers conclude that focusing on the conversion of large tracts of land to secondary forest would be most beneficial at this time and, thus, should be the primary aim of policymakers. Doing so would proffer a host of benefits — besides the obvious (reducing the net amount of carbon dioxide emissions), it would prevent further desertification, maintain biological diversity and provide regional climate regulation. For the long run, they go on to argue (to no one's surprise), we should make the development of carbon-free transport fuel technologies our main focus, a point we have consistently argued at TH.
Via ::Science: Carbon Mitigation by Biofuels or by Saving and Restoring Forests? (magazine, subs. required), ::New Scientist Environment: Forget biofuels - burn oil and plant forests instead (blog), ::Wired Science: Can't See the Forest for the Biofuels (blog)
See also: ::The Big, the Bad and the Biofuels, ::Italians Face Tough Call: Pasta or Biofuels?, ::Biofuel Plants Causing Air, Water and Soil Problems in Iowa
Images courtesy of World Land Trust and VerdeSam via flickr
It hurts when common sense proves correct.
We needed Nuclear 30 years ago, and we need it even more now! (if it's not too late)
Biomass is sometimes defined as "excess shrubs, rotted trees, and animal waste" as though these materials are superfluous in nature. In fact, a rotted tree is more valuable to the forest than a live tree.
For that matter, every natural thing is valuable to the forest. Shrubs and ground cover control erosion. Dead trees provide habitat, and rotting trees provide nutrients for living trees.
Each square foot in the forest floor is alive with literally billions of organisms, all of value to the forest. This includes bacteria, worms, various fungi, grasses, wildflowers, berry bushes, shrubs, mice, chipmunks, ferrets, turkeys, and so on, all mutually dependent. Dead plants, dead animals, and animal waste provide nutrients to the living.
Removing shrubs and rotted trees harms the forest, in fact, the very act of removing these items inflicts great harm to the living forest floor as huge equipment harvests the biomass.
This is at the current rate of consumption. I remember you could buy a Honda CRX 15 years ago that got 65 miles to the gallon. Nuclear is unprofitable if you take into consideration the true costs of nuclear on the taxpayer and citizen.
The study is seriously flawed and there's a lot of protest against it, with some writing to Science telling it that in this case standards have been lowered to accomodate a conservationist's biased agenda.
The vast bulk of biofuels are grown far away from rainforests.
The article makes it appear as if there are only biofuels made from deforestation. Totally false. There is only *one* biofuel made from deforestation: palm oil biodiesel.
All other commonly used feedstocks grow either in deserts, semi-arid tropics, grasslands or on poor soils far away from rainforests:
Sorghum: grows in the Sahel.
Jatropha: grows in the desert.
Pongamia: grows in the semi-arid tropics.
Sand Willow: grows in the desert in Mongolia.
Cassava: hates rainforests.
Groundnuts: grow in the Sahel.
Coconuts: grow on non-forest coast-lines.
Sweet potato: hates rainforests.
Corn: grows in Canada.
Rapeseed: grows in Canada.
Miscanthus: grows in non-forest tropics.
Arundo Donax: grows in grasslands (*is* grassland)
In fact, there are biofuels made from *re-forestation*! Biofuel crops *green the desert* (in Mongolia, Egypt, Namibia).
Moreover, the "study" is full of scientific mistakes; e.g. it is not aware of the fact that temperate forests are serious net carbon contributers.
Finally, the carbon emisson aspect is only one of many important factors that make biofuels so necessary. More important are environmental protection, income generation for the poor (poverty is the key driver behind environmental destruction), and energy security.
It's sad to see conservationists making themselves so irrelevant so quickly in the debate. Sad, because they could have played an important role.
We needed Nuclear 30 years ago, and we need it even more now! (if it's not too late)
We've never needed nuclear. We will never need nuclear.
It's still unclear to me why people think that all biofuels come from crops. Perhaps it's because -nearly all- biofuels come from crops these days, but that's not due to any laws of physics or of biology. Even the "big bad biofuels" link mentioned in this article uses the word "biofuels" in the headline, but talks about "agrofuels" in the body. It's my hope that biofuels from other sources such as algae can eventually alleviate many of the issues that crop-based biofuels have.
Most forests outside of the tropics are net carbon contributers. So the graph shown above is not very correct. Where it shows "temperate cropland to forest" it should be a negative bar. Where it shows "temperate cropland to grassland" it should be a negative bar, because a crop like sugarcane turned into ethanol used to replace petroleum (=cropland) offsets more carbon than grassland that is left to stand.
Treehugger reported on this earlier: "Is deforestation the solution to climate change?"
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/04/is_deforestatio.php
But then, the World Land Trust itself is heavily involved in tricking people into flawed carbon offsetting schemes. Most scientists now agree that most of these schemes actually contribute to climate change because mid to latitude forests are carbon contributers.
Ah, conservationists and science... not a good match.
We needed Nuclear 30 years ago, and we need it even more now! (if it's not too late)
We've never needed nuclear. We will never need nuclear.
So you're saying we should keep burning coal and strip mining Appalachian hills? Even if we could cut energy use tomorrow, most of our electricity comes from coal plants.
Maybe you can find a sponsor for $50k+ of solar panels on everyone's house?
Sure, there's lots of great research being done, but what are we going to do now? If it's not nuclear, we're burning coal just about everywhere.
Okay, I understand deforestation is a problem. It makes sense. But why are we cutting down rainforest for cropland when we don't utilize the farmland already in existence? The US Goverment subsidizes and even pays farmers to keep their fields fallow to keep order in the supply of agriculture. If too much corn were on the market, the prices would fall and farmers everywhere would suffer. Instead, we're talking about cutting down trees and forests to make new farmland?
It's really the quintessential problem in taking GREEN to the mainstream. I'm not one for MORE legislation or government involvement unless initiated by constituents. This is good place to initiate change! If we, as consumers, held the market accountable, we could avoid a lot of these problems. Instead, consumers continue to make purchases without consideration to life cycle or eco-impact. The price tag that comes along with this ignorance is staggering.
We must change our agenda. We must change our priorities. Just because we've always done things a certain way doesn't mean it's right. Its time to embrace the idea that there are better ways to live. Go green.
To: post a comment,
Hello from Monroe county michigan. Monroe will be the first, of thirty eight new nuclear power plants proposed to our youth. In the past four years our builders have invaded the streets of monroe, and tore down every single wetland and woods we have. They are completely ignoring our right to keep the lights down low in monroe. The buldings are out of scale. The need for more power was not here just four years ago. We are not completely against nuclear power. But watching our state, completely support the gross mis- use of the natural re-sources of monroe county, and then claim they need a new power plant, because of over building is rediculas. Coal is no good, nuclear even worse, over building, waste, and unessasary sprawl has caused the problem. Go take a drive at night in monroe and look at the changes, its unbelievable what we have allowed to happen to our old fashioned neighborhoods. Its hard to drive around with the new go green subdivisions lighting. The new develpoments blind you while driving. Send thank you letters to John Decker of wellsbowen, thank him for the bonus of greedy energy drain!