By ANN HINCH
Assistant Editor

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — Once upon a time, a future powered by widespread use of biofuel and renewable energy seemed the province of science fiction. Now that more common use is a reality, however, the future direction of such energy sources seems more like “suspense.”

“We’ve had a lot thrown at us,” said Mark Walters, biofuel consultant for Indiana corn and soybean organizations. “U.S. corn ethanol in particular” has been highly criticized, he added.

Ethanol and soy biodiesel have drawn fire the past few years through allegations that using corn and soybeans for fuel has raised the price of food because of fewer edible supplies; and that growing these crops has contributed to the clearing of forests elsewhere – which releases carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere.

In fact, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposal for an updated renewable fuels standard (RFS2) includes provisions requiring biofuel lifetime emissions calculations to include indirect land use even outside the United States. And cap-and-trade climate change legislation under consideration in Congress would create a carbon credits system, feared by some to raise costs greatly for energy-producing businesses and customers – and possibly farmers.

Richard Nelson of the Center for Sustainable Energy said there are flaws in the EPA’s proposal. He said the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change blames soybeans for release of nitrogen emissions. But Nelson said the crop is actually a “fixer” to keep nitrogen in the soil. (It should be noted, there are ag researchers who do see soy as a net user of nitrogen.)

For another, biodiesel shows 80 percent fewer lifetime emissions – “lifetime” meaning from planting the feedstock, to burning in an engine – than petroleum diesel. But by including indirect land use emissions, that 80 falls to 22 percent. The quagmire is that the EPA is requiring biofuel technology to produce only 50 percent emissions of petroleum, at most.

Land use in Brazil

Nelson told those at a Central Indiana Clean Cities Alliance (CICCA) workshop last week that the Brazilian people he’s talked with say land being cleared in their country for food crops is to grow soybeans for meal to ship to China and India, a demand that has gone up sharply in recent years.

“Right now, (the land use is) being laid at the door of biofuels,” he said. “It’s not being blamed on bad land management, or anything else.”

In late August, the National Corn Growers Assoc. hosted a St. Louis conference on land use and carbon impacts of corn-based ethanol, but also included discussion of soy and other crops. One of the speakers was Joel Velasco, chief representative-North America for the Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Assoc. (UNICA), who said he grew up in Brazil.

“All roads seem to lead to Brazil, or at least show up in Brazil,” he said, referring to discussions about land use change.

Velasco’s expertise is in sugarcane production – he said UNICA’s members are responsible for 60 percent of all sugar and sugar-based ethanol made in Brazil. Ninety percent of the country’s sugarcane is grown in south-central Brazil, he said, where most of the population lives. By contrast, the Amazon rainforest that draws the EPA’s attention is in the northern part of the country.

With respect to indirect land use, “the politicians (in California, Europe and Congress) actually passed a law before the science had it,” he opined, “and now the regulators (such as EPA) are forced to deal with it.”

He said there has been discussion of forest being cleared for cattle grazing. But grazing, he said, has been intensifying on smaller tracts of land, not moving north in Brazil. “Over time, cattle have been freeing up land for crops,” he said, adding for every head, there are 2.5 acres.

In June, Velasco testified to the EPA about Brazilian land use with respect to sugarcane. In part, he said, “First, at least half of our mills are using mechanical harvesting and we’ll be reaching 100 percent by 2014. Second, there have been restrictions and now a mandatory end to ages-old practice of preharvest field burning.
“Third, as we bring more biomass from the field to the mill, we’re increasing the co-generation efficiency of our power generation. We’re going from producing 20 kWh (kilowatt hours) to over 100 kWh per ton of cane. That means we’re not just replacing gasoline with our ethanol but also natural gas and coal with our electricity co-generation.”

He added, “We believe the science used to determine indirect impacts is quite limited, highly uncertain and open to misuse,” and said UNICA called on EPA to use “the best available data and latest research … before rushing to conclusions.”

Other considerations

Anne Hazlett, who will soon be leaving as director of the Indiana State Department of Agriculture to work as chief legal counsel for the U.S. Senate Ag Committee, closed the CICCA workshop with a presentation about other challenges facing biofuel production.
The 2008 farm bill, which she helped work on, allots grants and loan guarantees for research and construction of plants for cellulosic biofuel. There are several details which still need to be worked out, she said.

Part of the RFS2 is a consideration to raise the “blend wall” from a 10 to 15 percent ethanol mixture in petroleum gasoline. Not doing so, Hazlett explained, will make it difficult for the country to meet RFS minimum requirements for ethanol production and use through 2022.

There is also an effort to get country-of-origin-labeling (COOL) on biofuel pumps, proposed by advocates who want consumers to know if they are buying American-produced ethanol and biodiesel. This brings up the issue of tariffs on imported biofuel, particularly sugar ethanol.

Since 2005, Hazlett said Indiana has gone from one ethanol plant to 11, from no biofuel pumps to 125 and is now third in the nation for them. She said the state needs to address the issue of rural communities that might be good draws for a biofuel plant but cannot afford the updated infrastructure needed (such as newer water treatment plants), and the need for more fuel pumps in southern Indiana.

“(Indiana has) been playing catch-up with corn ethanol plants, and going forward, we would really like to be out front with second-generation plants,” Hazlett said.