Low-Input, High-Diversity Biofuels

Some people said it would never happen:

Oklahoma to seed over 1,000 acres to switchgrass

Guymon, by the way, is in the most arid region of Oklahoma. Switchgrass does not naturally occur there in great abundance. Also, switchgrass never occurs in nature in such high abundance over such large areas. Where it does occur, it is in diverse tallgrass communities and in highly genetically diverse populations.

A prediction: Within the next three years, there will be loss of switchgrass yields due to emergent diseases (perhaps caused by pathogens that are currently not even known). If the years are wet, there will be widespread lodging and fungal infections. If the years are dry, there will be crop failure due to lack of water, or (if the crop is irrigated) there will be a huge (and perhaps ugly) debate over proper use of water resources in the Oklahoma Panhandle.

Another prediction: The key players involved will express surprise, call the problems 'unanticipated' and will attribute failures to the quirky weather. They will propose quick fixes in the form of new genotypes, fungicides, and irrigation systems.

Please post comments if you agree or disagree with these predictions!

---Mike

Redamazon has a strong commentary on the effects of biofuels on indigenous peoples worldwide:

Biofuels: New Threat for Indigenous People

There is a perceptive column in the Washington Post on the environmental and social impact of biofuels by Lester Brown (Earth Policy Institute) and Jonathan Lewis (Clean Air Task Force). This is a good quick read for those wishing to update themselves on the current concerns.

Ethanol's Failed Promise

There are no details yet, but the San Francisco Business Times reports that some (though fewer than half) of the recently-announced research grants from the BP-supported Energy BioSciences Institute will cover the "social, economic and environmental impacts of biofuels production". Whether or not this is a case of greenwashing remains to be seen.

Energy Biosciences Institute makes first 49 biofuel grants

The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy has issued a fact sheet indicating its policy on sustainability for biofuels:

Sustainable biomass land reserves for a sustainable future

Reinvest in Minnesota - Clean Energy (RIM-CE) has issued a short document promoting use of prairie grasses for biofuels:

http://www.cleanenergyminnesota.org/fuels.pdf

Citing environmental concerns, the European Environment Agency's Science Committee has called for backing out of the EU's biofuels target:

Suspend 10% biofuels target, says EEA`s scientific advisory body
Source: European Environment Agency (EEA)
Published Apr. 10, 2008

A news item by Jeff Tollefson in the latest issue of Nature describes the potential for the US biofuels mandates to do quite a bit of environmental harm. This article also points to a crucial future role for the EPA in minimizing damage.

Advanced biofuels face an uncertain future
Aggressive US mandate may do more harm than good.

The New York Times reports on the conversion of CRP lands to crops.

As Prices Rise, Farmers Spurn Conservation

This brief article outlines the dramatic scope of the problem, along with the effects on conservation and wildlife. However, it does not mention the climatic consequences of carbon loss and greenhouse gas emissions, plus the reintroduction of biocides and groundwater pollution. This issue is not merely a concern of wildlife enthusiasts and hunters in the Great Plains; the effects on global biogeochemistry are likely to be immense.

The High Plains Journal recently reported on a talk I gave to the Department of Natural Resources Ecology and Management here on the Oklahoma State University campus:

Ecology, water and biodiversity enter ethanol debate

Recently, the United Nation's Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, has warned about political instability and weakening food security caused by massive land conversion for biofuels feedstocks. He calls for a review, but not a moratorium on biofuels.

UN chief calls for review of biofuels policy

Dennis Avery, Director of the Center for Global Food Issues, has written a strong critique of biofuels:

The worst moment in history to demand biofuels

A quote from the commentary:

"Corn ethanol is showing itself to be a massive error. Now how will the governments get out of the mandate before world wildlife disappears for all time?"

According to a report in the Guardian, the Tana River delta in Kenya, a site of great value to wildlife, is threatened by new sugar refineries designed to meet British biofuels demand:

UK biofuel needs 'threaten delta'
Hundreds of bird species are in danger from plans to plant sugar cane and build a refinery in Kenya

Here is a brand new review of the use of grasslands for biofuels:

Ceotto, E. (2008). "Grasslands for bioenergy production. A review." Agronomy for Sustainable Development 28(1): 47-55.
The promise of low-input high-diversity prairies to provide sustainable bioenergy production has recently been emphasized. This review article presents a critical discussion of some controversial points of using grasslands to produce bioenergy. The following issues are addressed: proteins versus biofuels; reactive nitrogen emissions; biodiversity; and effective land use. Two major disadvantages in deriving bioenergy from grasslands are identified: (i) marginal lands are displaced from their fundamental role of producing meat and milk foods, in contrast with the rising worldwide demand for high-quality food; and (ii) the combustion of N-rich grassland biomass, or by-products, results in emission of reactive N into the atmosphere and dramatically reduces the residence time of biologically-fixed nitrogen in the ecosystems. Nitrogen oxides, released during atmospheric combustion of fossil fuels and biomass, have a detrimental effect on global warming. Since intensively managed crops on fertile soils need to be cultivated to fulfil the dietary needs of populations, the potential role of inedible cereal crop residues in providing bioenergy merits consideration. This might spare more marginal land area for forage production or even for full natural use, in order to sustain high levels of biodiversity. Owing to the complexity of terrestrial systems, and the complexity of interactions, a modeling effort is needed in order to predict and quantify outcomes of specific combination of land use at higher integration levels.

The International Association for Vegetation Science, the leading scientific organization for scholars of the ecology of plant communities, has recently released a resolution on biofuels - largely supporting the idea for research into alternatives to HILD:

International Association for Vegetation Science
Resolution on Biofuels

Whereas:

• Over the past few years, concern about global climate change and energy security has dramatically increased interest in biomass-derived energy,
• Almost all attention on biomass-derived energy has been focused on High-Input, Low-Diversity (HILD) systems, which have questionable sustainability and are susceptible to disease and crop failure,
• Low-Input, High-Diversity (LIHD) systems have not been explored as a source of biomass for energy, despite their possible advantages for global carbon balance,
• In some regions, LIHD systems have potential additional value for sustainability, plant and animal biodiversity, nature conservation, honey production, aesthetics, erosion control, and other benefits,
• Vegetation scientists have particular expertise on the productivity and sustainability of vegetation- derived biomass, and are thus especially qualified for addressing fundamental issues associated with biofuel production,
• Expenditures for Scientific Research on biofuels have expanded dramatically, but not for vegetation science,
• Increased production of HILD crops is threatening natural vegetation worldwide, and much of this vegetation is of high conservation value or provides valuable ecosystem services,

Therefore be it resolved that:

• We, the International Association for Vegetation Science, call upon scientific funding agencies to increase funding for basic and applied vegetation science,
• We call upon industry, government, and other institutions to avoid a strictly crop‐based approach, and to consider LIHD production where appropriate,
• We call upon our own membership to remain mindful and vigilant that many of the natural communities we value and study may come under threat from strong pressure for HILD developments,
• We call upon our own membership to consider how its expertise can be used and mobilized to contribute to a global research program, in which alternatives to HILD are explored,
• And we call upon our own membership to communicate a balanced view of biomass-based fuels with stakeholders, including threats and opportunities associated with leading opportunities.

Biomass Magazine described a new report by consulting company Context Network. Despite all the hype about cellulosic technology as the savior for biofuels, this report is sharply critical about its prospects:

Study: Cellulosic ethanol a long shot

Biomass Magazine described a new report by consulting company Context Network. Despite all the hype about cellulosic technology as the savior for biofuels, this report is sharply critical about its prospects:

Study: Cellulosic ethanol a long shot

A recent posting in Biofuels Digest describes numerous ventures related to production of biocrude via fast pyrolysis. The Australian team (discussed previously on this blog) is only one of many.

A recent article in PNAS highlights the effects of nitrogen loading, caused by corn ethanol production:

Donner, S. D. and C. J. Kucharik (2008). "Corn-based ethanol production compromises goal of reducing nitrogen export by the Mississippi River." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105(11): 4513-4518.
Corn cultivation in the United States is expected to increase to meet demand for ethanol. Nitrogen leaching from fertilized corn fields to the Mississippi-Atchafalaya River system is a primary cause of the bottom-water hypoxia that develops on the continental shelf of the northern Gulf of Mexico each summer. In this study, we combine agricultural land use scenarios with physically based models of terrestrial and aquatic nitrogen to examine the effect of present and future expansion of corn-based ethanol production on nitrogen export by the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers to the Gulf of Mexico. The results show that the increase in corn cultivation required to meet the goal of 1536 billion gallons of renewable fuels by the year 2022 suggested by a recent U.S. Senate energy policy would increase the annual average flux of dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) export by the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers by 1034%. Generating 15 billion gallons of corn-based ethanol by the year 2022 will increase the odds that annual DIN export exceeds the target set for reducing hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico to >95%. Examination of extreme mitigation options shows that expanding corn-based ethanol production would make the already difficult challenges of reducing nitrogen export to the Gulf of Mexico and the extent of hypoxia practically impossible without large shifts in food production and agricultural management.

The American Bakers Association is calling on the Secretary of Agriculture to "increase the flexibility" of land use on Conservation Reserve Program lands, to allow the planting of grains. Plowing CRP lands will have immediate effects with respect to soil respiration and N2O respiration, thus accelerating climate change.

ABA Band of Bakers March on Washington, D.C. Announce Action Plan for Wheat Crisis

Farm groups and ethanol groups, according to biofuels digest, are also "shouting" for the "release" of CRP lands. I thought that the purpose of CRP was to release the lands from environmental abuse...

Rhett Butler from Mongabay reports on a recent scholarly paper by Dr. Donald Sawyer, an associate professor at the Center for Sustainable Development at the University of Brasilia. This paper stresses that land clearance for cellulosic crops may prove disastrous for the Amazon:

Cellulosic energy may trigger dramatic collapse in the Amazon

We know that many tropical systems are very vulnerable to land conversion. However, we also know that at moderate disturbance intensities, tropical systems are remarkably resilient. Why not a more modest approach (still bad, but not catastrophic): instead of simply replacing rainforests with monocultures, allow natural succession to replace rainforests with rainforests? Let the rainforest itself be the crop. Secondary forests have some conservation value, and are ideally maintained in landscapes with primary forests present.

Of course, woody plants are not as 'nice' as custom cellulosic crops - but the industry is working on conversion technologies.

The environmental impact of using diverse forests is likely to be orders of magnitude smaller than for crops.

It is not only the scientists and the food policy experts. Respected financial consultants are raising serious questions about the sustainability of biofuels.

Arthur D. Little questions sustainability of biofuels

The recent reconsideration of mandates and targets for biofuels has provoked (understandably) quite a lot of negative response from the industry and some politicians. However, the review is not a knee-jerk reaction:

Policy and energy experts seem to agree
UK biofuel policy review "not terrible thing," say analysts

Conference on the Ecological Dimensions of Biofuels
Washington DC
March 10, 2008

These are some highlights from the conference on the Ecological Dimensions of Biofuels, which took place yesterday.

After a few brief introductory talks and acknowledgments we heard from John Sheehan of LiveFuels, Incorporated. While he was at first dismissive of ‘feel good’ concepts of sustainability, he stressed the importance of life cycle assessment (LCA) of biofuels. He is to be applauded for his call for dialogue between industry, policy makers, and scientists. He stated,

“I am personally disappointed by the reaction of the biofuels industry to the two Science papers”

(meaning the recent Fargione et al. paper and the Searchinger et al. paper as previously discussed in this blog). It was refreshing to hear that, given the degree of vilification these papers have enticed. He stressed that the papers should be an opportunity to engage the parties. My quick reaction to that is the difficulty of engaging ecologists: when there is such a flood of funding for biofuels science yet a tiny trickle for the ecological aspects, the ecologists response that ‘we have no data’ is not likely to be very engaging.

Robin Jenkins of Dupont reported on that company’s integration of LCA into the planning process and project development was enlightening. She stressed the importance of collaboration with sustainability experts early in the planning process. I have seen many industry presentations before, and this is one of the few ones that really seemed 100% sincere. She made a convincing case that sustainability should be an organizing principle, and is indeed what her company is currently based on.

Catherine Kling, an economist from Iowa State University, reported on some of the water quality impacts of converting row crop acreage to switchgrass in the upper Mississippi valley. Her models showed that there were only modest improvements in nitrogen pollution, but she stressed the sensitivity of the models to scientific assumptions. The model exercise, she stated, was largely a framework for learning how to ask the right questions.

Philip Robertson of Michigan State University spoke on the Biogeochemistry of bioenergy landscapes. He started immediately by stressing the difference between cellulosic and noncellulosic fuels:

“Let me not mince any words: grain-based biofuels are an ecological train wreck”.

His promotion of cellulosic ethanol did not mention that we do not yet have a demonstrated capacity. With only a few pilot plants out there, we do not even know whether cellulosic production is feasible. The feasibility is based on projections and modelling.

Robertson reported that mid-successional systems have the most to offer with respect to ecosystem services and biofuel feedstocks. It is unclear whether repeated harvests of such systems will continue to have positive benefits from the greenhouse gas perspective.

One of Roberston’s surprising findings (surprising to me – but not to biogeochemists who have known it for a long time) is that forests have a very high methane oxidation potential. This means they are actively able to reduce the amount of a nasty greenhouse gas. Therefore, clearing forests for other biofuels is not likely to be very good for GHG emissions.

Virginia Dale of Oak Ridge National Laboratory stressed the complexity of the land use change issue, and argued that ecologists were being very simplistic. Although this talk was well-organized, and given by a well-respected landscape ecologist, the message was deeply frustrating. It sounded like “the system is too complex to possibly understand. What may seem like a good idea might actually be a bad idea, and vice versa”. Thus, it almost seemed like a call for inaction.

Jose Goldemberg of the Universidade do Sao Paulo gave the lunchtime keynote address, stressing the positive effects of sugar cane ethanol. He argued that “the problems with biofuels do not compare with those of fossil fuels” but later used harsh words against clearing the Amazon for soy biodiesel, and even harsher words against palm oil. He implied that the food vs. fuel debate was not a serious issue in Brazil.

John Wiens of The Nature Conservancy gave an excellent talk on the potential biodiversity consequences of biofuels developments. His organizing principle was that “land use is local but the economic drivers are global”. He placed landscapes on a scale of land use intensity (related to productivity), in which the most conserved (undisturbed) landscapes were at one end of the continuum, and the most productive (disturbed) at the other end. A high valuation of conservation will expand protection towards the productive end, yet a high valuation of agricultural products (including biofuels) will facilitate conversion of wildlands (such as CRP lands) or the infamous ‘marginal lands’ to production. Implicit to this model is the idea of a monotonic decline of conservation value as a function of intensity of land use. I found this a useful framework, though a bit misleading in certain circumstances. In particular, there are landscapes in which an intermediate intensity of management might actually be good for conservation. I think this is one area where John and I will agree to disagree.

Wally Wilhelm of USDA prepared a talk on biofuels on ‘marginal’ lands, but could not present due to illness. Rob Mitchell spoke in his stead. This talk implied that switchgrass could go a long way towards supplying domestic needs for ethanol, but pointed out potential problems exist.

Linda Wallace of the University of Oklahoma discussed perennial grassland systems, and presented data on a warming experiment implying that diverse systems, through the insurance effect, are far more resilient and resistant to disturbance than are monocultures. She stressed the importance of head-to-head comparison of LIHD vs. HILD systems, and lamented the fact that most current ‘comparisons’ are not truly comparable, and that we are relying far too much on modeled results and so little on actual data.

Marilyn Buford of the USDA Forest Service presented an optimistic view of biofuels from forest land. The talk was high on generalities but low on data. Thus, it is difficult to summarize here.

Donna Perla of US EPA pled with the audience to consider Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) as a prime potential feedstock. I think there was widespread support for this idea, but this talk was also low on specifics. The audience got no sense for what the major limiting technological factors were preventing the conversion of MSW into fuel. But the case that the resource could be significant was convincing.

Jerry Melillo of the Ecosystems Center presented a very pessimistic 50-year global model for the implications of biofuel development. To quote him,

“There will be almost certainly be massive biodiversity losses as biomass crops replace natural vegetation”

Other environmental and human impacts were also discussed. Nevertheless, Melillo stated some positive roles biofuels could play.

Otto Doering of Purdue University concluded the conference with a captivating talk, with no audiovisual aids except for the microphone. His entertaining style was almost uplifting – until we finally realized what his message was: many of the past policies that were good for conservation were implemented for reasons totally unrelated to conservation, and science has rarely been effectively integrated into policy. External drivers, rather than policy, has played the dominant role in land use change, whether in a positive or negative direction. While Doering did mention a few cases where ecologists (if they pose the argument appropriately) can make a difference, there was a strong implication that factors other than logic or values will continue to determine policy and its effects.

In addition to the talks, there were a number of posters, ranging from theory and modelling to experiments. Two posters (one by Hank Stevens, and one by Gregory Houseman) dealt directly with LIHD. Both ended up supporting the concept. The Stevens poster dealt more deeply with ecological theory, and the Houseman poster presented the results of an experiment. Interestingly, the Houseman poster backed up the famous Cedar Creek (Minnesota) results, but on a Kansas system: diverse systems can do remarkably well in unfertilized systems, comparably to low diversity fertilized systems.

Today (March 11) and tomorrow a select group (why I got selected is beyond me – perhaps this blog has something to do with it) is continuing with a workshop, to assess what is known and what needs to be known about the ecological consequences of biofuels. We expect to produce a number of print (and electronic) products, both specialized and not, related to the outcome of the workshop. It is too early to report on those, but I will blog about them when they become available! One thing is striking though: several of the ecologists in attendance say that this is the first workshop they have been to in which biofuels are being considered as having a possible role in a sustainable future. In contrast, I am from a geographic area (and institution) where few people question the beneficence of biofuels. I was surprised by the stark regional differences in attitudes towards biofuels (I suspected they existed but were more subtle).

The cart is getting even further ahead of the horse. The USDA and the DOE have announced spending $18.5 Million on biofuels research and demonstration - but not a cent of this seems to be going towards understanding the impacts of biofuels on the climate or biodiversity, nor for the sustainability of the biomass crop itself.

USDA investing in biomass research