Does the ethanol mandate increase CO2 emissions?

by Marlo Lewis
May 27, 2009 @ 5:42 pm

That may seem counter-intuitive, because burning ethanol merely puts back into the air the carbon dioxide (CO2) that corn crops recently pulled out of it, whereas burning gasoline liberates carbon that had been stored in geologic deposits for millions of years.

But other factors come into play, such as the fossil energy inputs required to produce the corn, turn it into ethanol, and deliver the ethanol to market.

In addition, as EPA argues in its proposed rule to implement the renewable fuel standard program established by the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA), expanding corn production into forest and grass lands can release substantial amounts of carbon stored in soils and trees.

Similarly, when U.S. farmers grow corn in areas previously used to produce soy beans, for example, farmers in Brazil have an incentive to convert forest land into soy plantations.

As you might expect, EPA’s use of life-cycle analysis, although required by EISA, drives the ethanol lobby and its congressional allies up the wall. They claim it is ridiculous to link increased corn production here to increased CO2 emissions in developing countries.

But, as my colleague, agricultural commodity analyst Dave Juday, demonstrates, the numbers paint a very clear picture. With Dave’s permission, I reproduce below an email he sent around earlier today.

* * *

With regard to GHG and the EPA’s RFS [renewable fuel standard] 2 rule, … the concept of “indirect land use changes” (ILUC) get criticized for being faulty, but it actually is pretty sound.

Consider, if ethanol drives up US corn plantings (which it did) and drives down US soybean plantings and production (which it did, because the US – the largest producer and exporter – has only so much farm land and not much tillable acreage to expand) and thereby raises the world price of soybeans, it raises the incentives to grow soybeans elsewhere in the world. It just so happens Brazil – which is the world’s second largest producer and exporter – is the most likely place where additional soybeans will be grown on virgin land because that is where the virgin land is.

The real weak link in this GHG lifecycle emissions concept is the ability to measure and value the carbon emissions and sequestration and the process by which “value” gets assigned to practices and manufacturing processes. Yet, as might be expected from ethanol advocates, it is the simple, fundamental, and rational economic concept that is argued against. Consider the perspectives shared by a lobbyist and a US Senator on the issue of “indirect land use changes” driven by US biofuel policy:

* Basically, the EPA has determined that the production of ethanol in America is forcing land use changes in Brazil and other foreign countries to destroy their valuable rain forests to produce farm commodities to make up for reduced exports of these commodities from the United States. Mr. Chairman, I have been in Washington for a long time, but I have never heard of a more bizarre concept. – Tom Buis, CEO, Growth Energy
* Every chance I get, I’m going to bring this issue up. It’s so obvious that the EPA’s rationale doesn’t meet the common sense test. It’s ridiculous to think that Brazilian farmers are looking to see what Iowa farmers are doing to determine how they run their own business, and quite frankly it’s plain unfair to farmers. – Honorable Charles Grassley, US Senator (R-IA)

Addressing these comments above is one of those cases where a picture is indeed worth 1,000 words:



SOURCE: USDA, Foreign Agricultural Service: Production, Supply, and Distribution Online

From http://www.globalwarming.org/

Compare and Contrast

by Iain Murray
May 26, 2009 @ 2:30 pm

Bjorn Lomborg, November 2007:

…although it may seem almost comically straightforward, one of the best temperature-reducing approaches is very simple: paint things white. Cities have a lot of black asphalt and dark, heat-absorbing structures. By increasing reflection and shade, a great deal of heat build-up can be avoided. Paint most of a city and you could lower the temperature by 10C.

Steven Chu, May 2009:

Professor Steven Chu, speaking at the opening of the St James’s Palace Nobel Laureate Symposium, for which The Times is media partner, said this simple and “completely benign” approach to “geo-engineering” could have a vast impact at low cost. By lightening all paved surfaces and roofs to the colour of cement, it would be possible to reduce carbon emissions by as much as taking all the world’s cars off the roads for 11 years, he said.

I ask you to compare and contrast because one of these men is an “evil delayer” (or worse), and the other a planetary savior. Yet the savior is now adopting a policy advocated for two years by the “delayer.”

Perhaps there is hope for the global warming debate yet.

From http://www.globalwarming.org/

Editorial Cartoon Backfires

by Paul Chesser, Heartland Institute Correspondent
May 26, 2009 @ 11:35 am

Unless I’m totally misunderstanding the sketch of today’s editorial cartoon by the Washington Post’s Tom Toles, which unimaginatively illustrates climate change “deniers” like a head-in-the-sand ostrich, he also also has drawn a huge sun which apparently is throwing intense heat on the “deniers” (which are supposed to be Republicans, I guess).

But in drawing the sun Toles has unwittingly made a case for solar activity being a stronger climate driver than greenhouse gases. I think Harvard solar scientist Willie Soon would love it.

From http://www.globalwarming.org/

Waxman-Markey: Coercion for its own sake

by Marlo Lewis
May 22, 2009 @ 4:33 pm

Most media coverage of H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACES), focuses on the bill’s cap-and-trade program and the free rationing coupons (emission allowances) that the bill’s co-sponsors, Reps. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Ed Markey (D-MA), had to hand out to utilities and other interests to secure their support for the legislation.

But the cap-and-trade program occupies only one of four of the bill’s main sections (”titles”). Other titles contain a host of mandates and “incentives” (carrots and sticks) to reshape energy and transportation markets.

ACES, for example:

* Requires utilities to meet a certain percentage of their load with electricity generated from renewable sources, like wind, biomass, solar, and geothermal.
* Promotes small-scale “distributed generation” of renewable electricity by offering three renewable electricity credits (instead of one credit) for each MWh produced.
* Authorizes electric power generators to create a Carbon Storage Research Consortium with the power to assess “fees” (aka taxes) totalling approximately $1 billion annually to fund carbon capture and storage (CCS) demonstration plants.
* Directs the EPA Administrator to hand out free rationing coupons to subsidize CCS.
* Establishes a CCS mandate requiring new coal-fired power plants to emit 65% less carbon dioxide if permitted after 2020, and emit 50% less if permitted between 2009 and 2020; also requires EPA to review these standards not later than 2025 and every five years thereafter.
* Requires utilities to ”consider” developing plans to support electric vehicle infrastructure, and provides assistance (including free emission allowances) to subsidize electric vehicles and infrastructure.
* Mandates stricter building codes achieving 30% higher energy efficiency in 2010 and 50% higher in 2016 for new buildings, and establishes a “building retrofit program” for existing residential and nonresidential buildings.
* Mandates tougher energy efficiency standards for indoor and outdoor lighting, hot food holding cabinets, bottle-type drinking water dispensers, hot tubs, commercial-grade natural gas furnaces, televisions, and other appliances.
* Requires the President, EPA, the Department of Transportation (DOT), and California to establish greenhouse gas (GHG)/fuel economy standards for new passenger cars and light trucks.
* Requires and sets deadlines for EPA to establish GHG emission standards for heavy-duty engines and vehicles and non-road vehicles including marine vessels, locomotives, and aircraft.
* Requires States to establish goals and submit transportation plans to reduce transport sector GHG emissions, and imposes sanctions on States that fail to comply.
* Requires the Deparment of Energy (DOE) to establish industrial energy-efficiency standards.

These measures are economically and environmentally irrational even if you believe that global warming is a “planetary emergency.” As the Charles River Associates (CRA) report for the National Black Chamber of Commerce points out, the renewable electricity, CCS, electric vehicle, and energy efficiency mandates will not yield net emission reductions beyond what the bill’s emission caps already require. The targeted interventions may accelerate GHG reductions in some industries or sectors, but that just allows emissions to increase elsewhere in the economy without breaking the cap.

The rationale for cap-and-trade is that it allows the market to find the least-costly methods of reducing emissions. By superimposing renewable electricity, CCS, electric vehicle, and energy efficiency mandates on that system, Waxman-Markey dictates the means as well as the goals.

There are two possible outcomes. First, which is exceedingly unlikely, the cap motivates reductions in exactly the same ways as the targeted mandates and incentives. In that case, observes CRA, the mandates “would waste resources on needless monitoring, measuring, enforcement and compliance.”

If, as almost certainly would happen, the mandates compel different actions and investments than industry would otherwise undertake to meet the cap, then the same emission reductions would be achieved at higher cost. The targeted mandates and incentives “can only substitute more costly GHG cuts for those that could have been made at lower cost.”

So what is the point? Why tout cap-and-trade as an “efficient,” “market-based” solution and then gunk it up with cookie-cutter, command-and-control measures?

Several reasons come to mind including deep distrust of markets, an abiding belief in old-fashioned central planning, the desire to rig market outcomes to benefit or punish certain interests, and the desire to create more work (endless full employment) for bureaucrats and lawyers.

One that should not be discounted, though, is the pleasure some people derive from placing their heels on other people’s necks. Politics is chiefly about the organization and application of power. It tends to attract people who enjoy bullying and coercing others. To regulate is to coerce. Command-and-control regulation is more coercive than the market-based variety. So despite their real or feigned enthusiasm for cap-and-trade, many climate activists are hopelessly addicted to mandates.

From http://www.globalwarming.org/

Obama CAFE kills

by Sam Kazman
May 22, 2009 @ 12:43 pm

President Obama unveiled Tuesday a plan to sharply increase federal gas mileage rules for vehicles sold in the United States, eventually bringing the requirement up to an average of 35.5 miles per gallon. Unfortunately, these rules – known as the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards – have the deadly effect of causing new cars to be lighter, smaller and less crashworthy.

CAFE is among the deadliest government regulations we have, and with today’s announcement it’s going to get even deadlier. It kills consumers by reducing vehicle size, and now it may well kill car companies by forcing them to produce cars that consumers don’t want. The only redeeming aspect of the President’s announcement is that there’ll be only one standard imposed on the industry, rather both national and California standards. But that just means carmakers will have one noose around their necks instead of two.

A 2002 National Research Council study found that the federal CAFE standards contributed to about 2,000 deaths per year through their restrictions on car size and weight. An increase in the severity of the rules will only raise that death toll. Shockingly, the federal agency tasked with making Americans safer on the road – the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration – has refused to acknowledge this fact, even after being overturned by a federal court for ignoring the issue.

As bad as CAFE is, it’s an even more ominous sign that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is being joined in this initiative by the Environmental Protection Agency. Longtime observers of the EPA know that while the agency’s mission is to protect human health and the environment, it’s usually not in that order.

In addition to being sold as a global warming measure, the tightening of CAFE standards is, even less convincingly, being promoted as a boon for economic growth. Advocates have claimed that more fuel efficient cars are the future of the auto industry, yet have not explained why this should require government mandates.

From http://www.globalwarming.org/