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Scientific models key to EPA on possible RFS changes

By ANN HINCH
Assistant Editor

ST. LOUIS, Mo. — Economic and scientific modeling will never hit a runway, but like models in fashion magazines, it does demonstrate what being modeled could look like on a specific frame – or under a specific set of circumstances.

Economic and scientific models, and what’s behind them, were the backbone of presentations at the National Corn Growers Assoc. (NCGA) Land Use and Carbon Impacts of Corn-based Ethanol conference in St. Louis last week.

Modeling is behind the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposed rulemaking for an updated renewable fuels standard (RFS2) and contributions to Congressional climate-change legislation such as cap-and-trade (House Bill 2454).

Scientists and economists gather what data they can relative to the outcome requested and either feed it into a programmed model or design one themselves. It’s sort of like plugging numbers into a mathematical formula – but while everybody knows 2 + 2 = 4, many may dispute a model’s predicted outcome by suggesting data are flawed or incomplete, or that the “formula” itself isn’t correct.

The EPA commissioned several models to see how future corn planting and yield could affect GHG emissions, directly (release of soil carbon, fuel used, etc.) and indirectly through potential land use changes here and overseas. The latter factor has been especially controversial.

One of the conference’s first speakers was Vincent Camobreco with the EPA, who explained a little about the agency’s role in RFS2. Mainly, he said the proposed update for renewable fuel production by 2022 includes more advanced – especially cellulosic – biofuel types.

The proposal sets up four categories: cellulosic biofuel (16 billion gallons annually by 2022); biomass diesel (1 billion by 2012); advanced biofuel other than cellulosic (minimum of 4 billion by 2022); and “general” renewable biofuel such as corn ethanol and soy biodiesel (up to 15 billion yearly by 2022).

In figuring the lifecycle GHG emissions of each biofuel – meaning, emissions from planting or creation of the feedstock, to it being burned in an auto – he said the EPA also included emissions from indirect effects of land use change.

One example given has been: U.S. farmers plant more corn (for ethanol), using soybean land to do it; Brazil has to plant more soybeans to make up for fewer U.S. world exports; Brazil has to raze rainforest to plant soybeans, releasing tons of carbon from felled trees and plowed land.

“Really, what it comes down to is, what are the opportunity costs of using land for biofuel versus using that land for other purposes,” Camobreco said.

The controversy over indirect land use modeling stems from whether it’s possible to determine if more rainforest is indeed being cleared for agriculture and, if so, how much, if any, should be blamed on U.S. ethanol production. Such blame would presumably come with more restrictions on farming, and possibly higher costs.
Another criticism from farm groups has been that the EPA is comparing the GHG emissions of increased biofuel production in 2022 with the same types of emissions from petroleum fuel production – in 2005. Geoff Cooper of the Renewable Fuels Assoc. pointed out there may be changes in petroleum extraction and refining in 13 years, especially if companies have to get oil from less convenient sources such as Canadian tar sands or deeper drilling.

Camobreco said the EPA plans to look at updated petroleum methods and indirect land use possibilities in the future. The reason he said it hasn’t is because when Congress instructed the EPA to do this comparison in 2005, the legal language specified a 2005 baseline for petroleum.

Camobreco also said the EPA did take into account the types of potential land use changes. For example, the creation of more pasture for livestock would likely result in fewer GHG emissions than cropland creation. Too, how land is converted matters – burning a forest would release more emissions than converting already-clear pasture into cropland.

9/2/2009