VANCOUVER – Biofuel leaders wonder why their industry has been singled out for intense environmental scrutiny.
“There is a pernicious double standard that is being created. Somehow biofuels need to be as pure as the driven snow,” U.S. Renewable Fuels Association president Bob Dineen told the Canadian Renewable Fuels Summit held recently in Vancouver.
“They forget that what we are replacing is petroleum that has polluted our skies, devastated our landscape, undermined economic growth and devastated our balance of trade.”
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Dineen and others like him are particularly concerned about the rough treatment biofuel is receiving from U.S. government regulators who have embraced the indirect land-use theory, which minimizes the environmental benefits of ethanol and biodiesel.
Under the indirect land-use test, biofuel’s overall impact is assessed partly by taking into account how it might affect the environment in other parts of the world.
For example, farmers in countries such as Brazil and Indonesia might destroy rainforest to grow food to make up for the loss in food production in countries where crops are grown to make biofuel.
The battle being waged over the validity of the theory has serious ramifications for the biofuel industry and for grain growers who provide the sector with its feedstock.
Ethanol is the second largest consumer of grain in the United States, behind only the feed sector.
“We surpassed exports a few years ago,” Dineen said.
The indirect land-use issue has the potential to limit this new source of demand, which has propped up corn and soybean prices. As a result, groups such as the U.S. National Corn Growers Association are getting involved in the debate.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is set to release regulations governing national biofuel mandates later this month.
Biofuel leaders say soy biodiesel and corn ethanol won’t meet the minimum greenhouse gas reduction targets established in the regulations because the EPA has bought into the indirect land-use argument.
Existing ethanol plants are grandfathered into the U.S. renewable fuel standard, but biodiesel plants and future ethanol plants will be subject to the stringent standards contained in the forthcoming regulations.
Other speakers at the conference said the indirect land-use argument is based on flawed assumptions, such as the idea that the grain industry is operating at full capacity. It doesn’t take into account factors such as summerfallow.
They wondered why indirect effects are not being applied to petroleum fuel and why regulators aren’t calculating the indirect benefits of biofuel, such as the fact that it avoids having to use fuel from the oilsands.
Dineen called the indirect land-use theory “utter nonsense,” saying global deforestation has decreased as U.S. ethanol production has risen.
But the EPA appears intent on including the factor in its lifecycle analysis, which drops corn ethanol’s greenhouse gas reductions to 15 to 20 percent from 50 to 60 percent.
Dineen said that is a solid environmental contribution, even at the lower range.
He said U.S. president Barack Obama will likely be praised at the climate change conference in Copenhagen for pledging a similar-sized reduction in carbon emissions.
“Why is it that a 17 percent reduction is good for the power generation industry but not for us? It’s a double standard.”
He said it also irks him that when it comes to establishing biofuel regulations, the EPA embraces a theory based on no science, but when the industry asks the agency to approve an increase in ethanol blends to 15 from 10 percent, the decision is delayed because more analysis is required.
“We have to test every weed whacker and lawn mower in the country before the EPA allows a sensible thing like E15.”
He said he envies Canada, where the indirect land-use factor has not been incorporated into federal and provincial biofuel mandates.
