Corn Growers Try to Understand Indirect Land Use Change

The National Corn Growers Association’s recent “Land Use: Carbon Impacts of Corn Based Ethanol 2009” conference highlighted the confusion the issue of indirect land use change has engendered for farmers. Chuck Zimmerman of AgWired summed it up in a report from the conference:
Do you understand things like indirect land use when it comes to regulations [...]

Why ILUC Theory Bears No Resemblance to Reality

Iowa State’s Bruce Babcock has written a defense of the current economic equilibrium models used by the EPA and California Air Resources Board, in light of the fact that the models’ assumptions about soybean production and acreage have turned out wrong. Babcock frames the debate over international land use change as “whether the models used by [...]

Indirect Land Use Paradigm Change

A recent analysis by Iowa State University Biofuels Economist Robert Wisner argues that requirements for biofuel production are on a collision course with greenhouse gas reduction goals. He notes that the Energy Independence and Security Act’s requirement for gradual increases in production of biofuels “was designed to provide time for technology development and industry growth.” [...]

EPA Ready to Release Rules for RFS

The White House Office of Management and Budget has completed its review of the EPA’s rules for the Renewable Fuel Standard, which will contain the lifecycle analysis for U.S. fuels. Reuters and the Des Moines Register have reported on the significance of the rule, though EPA has not made clear when the rule will be [...]

A Bad Rule Is Better Than No Rule?

California’s Air Resources Board will vote Thursday on its proposed numbers for the life cycle emissions of various fuels, included under the Low Carbon Fuel Standard.
According to a Greenwire story picked up in the New York Times, advocates of the rule believe that it will stimulate investment in advanced biofuels, since according to the [...]

Unintended Consequences of California’s LCFS

The LA Times today published an insightful opinion article written by Gal Luft, executive director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security and co-founder of the Set America Free Coalition titled “Greenhouse gas rules could fuel oil dependence” http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-luft16-2009apr16,0,2388173.story. One of the reasons many experts and stakeholders are following the California Air Resources [...]

Best Available Science?

Yesterday, the Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE) released a report, “Biofuels: Environmental Consequences and Interactions with Changing Land Use,” based on the proceedings of its International Biofuels Project Rapid Assessment.
The Environmental Working Group immediately praised the report, claiming that it “confirms that corn-based ethanol is a dead end.” (I recommend reading this [...]

Ethanol or Tar Sands?

Those who are pushing the inclusion of indirect land use change (ILUC) in government regulations have thus far proposed ILUC as the only indirect effect and that it only apply to biofuels. A letter from more than 100 scientists pointed out this would create unequal boundaries for transportation fuels and unfairly disadvantage biofuels.
But are there [...]

Controversy on Discounting Greenhouse Gas Emissions

On March 13, Sens. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) along with 10 others sent a new letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson urging “EPA to refrain from including any calculations of the ILUC components in determining life-cycle GHG emissions for biofuels at this time.” The new letter referenced a letter sent in November [...]

California Proposes Numbers for Indirect Land Use Change Emissions

California issued a staff report last week for its “Proposed Regulation to Implement the Low Carbon Fuel Standard.” As expected, the rule proposes a measure of indirect land use change emissions for select biofuels – corn and sugarcane ethanol and soy biodiesel. The report defines the assumptions behind the analysis – in a word, that [...]