Sustainable Biodiesel
Several years ago, biofuels in general and biodiesel in particular, appeared to the green solution to America's energy problem of reliance on carbon-intensive petroleum fuels. Environmentalists, farmers, politicians, and national-security wonks lined up in support of the biodiesel energy solution.
It was too good to last. In early 2008, a study lead by Timothy Searchinger, a Princeton lawyer, made the claim that biofuel production resulted in higher carbon emissions. The study made some serious assumptions about where biofuel feedstocks came from, inaccurately ascribed environmental costs to its production.
Much of the inaccurate estimations comes from what's called Indirect Land Use Changes . The study assumed that all biodiesel produced would come (either directly or indirectly) from clearing tropical rainforest. Because rainforest has the ability to absorb and store so much carbon, this represented a net addition of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. In fact, much new agricultural production capability comes into existence simply through more efficient farming techniques. Since WWII, this has increase crop yields at a rate of several percent per year.
Furthermore, oilseed crops are often grown in rotation with other crops. Camelina can be grown in rotation with winter wheat- rejuvenating nutrients in the soil.The other optioin is to leave that land fallow and bare, exposing it to drying and wind.
The oil from oilseed crops is often the by-product of what the farmer is actually making money at. For example, most oilseed crops are crushed pressed intoprotien rich cake, which is fed to animals, and the oil itself. The oil has been considered a waste product, which has to be shipped off to a distant location and sold at a relatively low price. A more efficient use would be local reprocessing into biodiesel.
An argument heard during the food inflation of 2008 was that biofuel production was driving up the cost of food in developing countries- but this is also incorrect. Since last summer, the costs of producing have plummeted, biodiesel plants have been temporarily closed due to high feedstock (oilseed) prices, yet food remains at astronomically high prices, and yet the profits of grocery conglomerates has soared. Is the free market really at work here? Or is food price maniplation going on?
The Searchinger study also made assumptions about scaling biodiesel production up to meet all of global demand- hardly realistic given today's technology. In the future, perhaps, algea-based biofuels will allow biodiesel to resolve; for now, the National Biodiesel Board has set a goal of 5% of the nations biodiesel by 2015. Currently, U.S. biodiesel factories could produce biodiesel from agriculatural land of about 5 million acres- about twice the size of Park County.This is hardly a huge displacement of food production.
Admittedly, aggressive biofuels mandates in other countries (e.g. Germany) have driven environmental desctruction in developing countries (e. g. The Phillipines). This is a good lesson to proceed carefully and righteously. But biofuel policy does not automatically demand unsustainable agriculture. Rather, all truly sustainable energy solutions are local. The Park Biofuels Coop prides itself on selling Montana-made biodiesel produced from either waste vegetable oil or in-state grown oilseed crops.Taking responsibility for our energy means nether exporting our production (and problems) overseas; nor does it mean exporting the problems to the future (as petroleum fuels do).
Biodiesel does not promise to solve all our energy problems, everywhere; forever. But it can help with some of them, here, now.