Questioning the Relationship Between Biofuels and Food Costs

A new study released by Texas A&M’s Agricultural and Food Policy Center undermines one of the key assumptions used in the studies that attributed a huge “carbon debt” to biofuels.
The assumption used by Searchinger et al. is that biofuel production increases the cost of all commodity grains, encouraging countries to convert additional land – such [...]

TIME Magazine’s Journalism Scam

Or How TIME Eliminated Fairness In Reporting
As a former reporter and scientist I read Michael Grunwald’s recent story in TIME, The Clean Energy Scam with a certain amount of dismay. The New York Times calls Michael Grunwald, “a talented Washington Post reporter.” However talented Mr. Grunwald may be, in this story he has [...]

British Government to Study Indirect Impacts of Biofuels

Last week, Britain’s Renewable Fuels Agency (RFA) launched a series of studies of the indirect land-use impacts of biofuels, following a lecture by Princeton’s Tim Searchinger, lead author of “Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions from Land Use Change” published in Science in February.
The RFA intends to publish a draft report [...]

Trying to Define the Indirect Land Use Issue

Michigan State University Professor of Chemical Engineering Bruce Dale recently sent a letter to colleagues interpreting the analyses by Searchinger et al. and Fargione et al. in Science. In the letter, Dale says, “The Searchinger and Fargione argument at its root is this: corn (and perhaps cellulosic) ethanol is not sustainable because it will divert [...]

Meet the Press (Or at least their editorial boards)

Recently two editorials were written by the NY Times and Washington Post concerning biofuels in which the recent Science papers were referred to.
According to the NY Times,

“The studies’ authors say that some ethanol sources wood wastes, or grasses planted on previously degraded land — could yield net benefits in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. Still, [...]

Tilman clarifies study

Much of the media coverage of the recent Science Magazine studies made it clear that many hadn’t actually read the studies before they reported on them. Some interpreted the studies as condemning corn ethanol production now, not as the worst case scenario of what could happen in the future.
University of Minnesota professor David Tilman, an [...]

Is the Debate on Land Use Over?

The full implications of the German Marshall Fund and Nature Conservancy articles in Science and the agenda and arguments of environmental and conservation advocates are coming more into focus. Consider comments posted by Nathanael Greene of the Natural Resources Defense Council on his Switchboard:
While we still do not have international protocols that pay to protect [...]

Biofuels Feedstocks - Yield Matters

The following post was submitted by Richard Hamilton, president and CEO of Ceres, Inc.
Technology is playing a critical role in maximizing the inherent advantages of dedicated energy crops. Through advanced plant breeding, public and private researchers are increasing yields both in terms of tons per acre (field yields) and in terms of gallons per ton [...]

No land cleared for biofuels

One of the many flaws of the Science Magazine studies on biofuels and land use changes is their assumption that an acre of crops dedicated to biofuels in America will lead to an acre of deforestation elsewhere in the world. In fact, in a recent interview with the Nature Conservancy (his employer) Joe Fargione, the [...]

The Truth is Out There: But you have to look

Biofuels are great! There. I’ve been wanting to say that. And I say that not just because I work here at BIO, but because the science in the Science papers needs a little examining. There is misinformation all over the blogosphere. For example, Siko, in the German Carzone posting the following comments today,
“Two studies shows [...]