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Applying indirect effects from biofuels to fossil fuels
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Creating a level playing field in the direction of environmental responsibility should be considered.
Food-based biouels have problems, most prominantly with their indirect land-use effects doemstically and abroad. In order to bring more land into use to cultivate feedstocks for biofuels, conservation land needs to be brought out of retirement and forests need to be cleared to make room for the fuel plants. You can read all about those types of problems here.
In a previous post, I brought up a Nature Conservancy report not to denigrate the introduction of a concept that they termed 'energy sprawl', but rather to highlight the fact that fossil fuels are receiving a free pass when it comes to considering indirect land use effects in relation to their production. Indirect land use effects are defined by the New Fuels Alliance (granted, a pro-biofuels organization) as those "related to either price-induced or behavioral changes in the marketplace". Direct effects are those that are related to the energy and material inputs associated with the operation of production.
In order to determine direct effects, a full life-cycle analysis is necessary in order to determine the impact of various fuel types. "Traditional fuel life-cycle analyses compare a range of alternative fuels to petroleum fuels on a well-to-wheel (WTW) basis including feedstock production, transport to refining, refining into multiple products, delivery to end markets, and vehicle emissions."
Up until recently, only direct effects of fuels were considered in life-cycle comparisons, but "recent analyses of the life-cycle impacts of biofuels have expanded the boundaries to include indirect effects of ethanol production such as land use change impacts on soil CO2 and N2O emissions, and the impact of land use change on crop production and cattle stock". This new segment of analysis should be applied as rigorously to fossil fuels as it is being applied to biofuels. (read an analysis of direct and indirect effects of petroleum here)
For example, is the Iraq war an indirect effect of petroleum production; is climate change an indirect effect of burning coal? Should impacts associated with protecting our oil supply be figured into the indirect effects of petroleum use? (here) Should climate change mitigation and environmental reparations be figured into the energy investment side of ERoEI equation for coal? (here) If we do, then renewable energy begins to look far superior to coal and oil.
In addition to full life-cycle analyses and indirect effects of fossil fuels being considered, we ought to be also figuring the true amount of energy invested in the ERoEI equation. If the Iraq war is part of securing a stable supply of oil for the future, and climate change and environmental degradation are costs associated with the burning of coal, then we should figure those into the equations affiliated with producing oil and coal. I doubt their energy return would be as high if we began figuring in the true costs associated with fossil fuels.
In the Nature Conservancy's report on 'energy sprawl' they concluded that coal was the third least impactive energy technology in their study next to geothermal and nuclear. Solar photovolatic was sixth and wind was ninth. Biofuels from cellulose came in around 50 times more impactive than coal. This seems hyperbolic. For the Nature Conservancy to say that coal is the third least impactive energy technology we have, certainly does not take into account the reality that we are seeing on the ground and in the air all around us; there must be something wrong with the equations they are using.
It is good that we are considering indirect land use changes and full life-cycle analyses in our production of fuels. We should apply this criteria to biofuels. We should also be taking the process for analyzing the indirect effects of biofuels and apply it to fossil fuels.
The Renewable Fuels Association's tactic of criticizing the EPA's proposal to calculate biofuels' greenhouse gas emissions by including indirect effects is not the course many environmentalists wish to see happen; in fact, the biofuel industry will only induce more criticism by advocating such measures. The new legislation being proposed to excuse biofuels from indirect effects is short-sighted. Instead, the biofuel industry should be advocating that this new method of considering indirect and life-cycle costs should be applied fully to the fossil fuel industries. A level playing field in the direction of environmental responsibility is what they should be asking for.
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