Fwd: EU biofuels regulatory science

EU biofuel data change angers environmentalists

Wed Oct 29, 2008 12:58pm GMT,
Reuters

 

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By Pete Harrison

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European biofuels could receive a boost from a change in the way the European Union calculates their impact on the environment, a document shows, angering environmentalists who think they do more harm than good.

The European Council document seen by Reuters on Wednesday also annoyed European biodiesel producers who see a bias toward bioethanol.

New figures on how biofuels can help cut greenhouse gas emissions in the fight against climate change follow swiftly after the European Parliament proposed clamping down on their use, fearing negative side effects such as deforestation.

The EU's final stance will be decided in negotiations in coming weeks between the European Parliament and member states, who are discussing the new data this week.

"The timing and lack of transparency surrounding these new figures raises serious questions about how the biofuel lobby has been able to influence the debate," said Nusa Urbancic of environment group T&E.

The European Union's executive has proposed that 10 percent of all road transport fuel comes from renewable sources by 2020, as it seeks to heed U.N. warnings that climate change will bring more extreme weather and rising sea levels.

Much of that 10 percent would come from biofuels, creating a huge potential market that is coveted by exporters such as Brazil, Malaysia and Indonesia, as well as EU farming nations.

But environmentalists charge that biofuels made from grains and oilseeds have pushed up food prices and forced subsistence farmers to expand agricultural land by hacking into rainforests and draining wetlands.

DEFORESTATION

The European Parliament has responded by agreeing to limit fuels from food such as Brazilian sugar to 6 percent of EU fuel.

It has demanded that from the outset biofuels cut greenhouse gas emissions by 45 percent compared to petrol and diesel, an increase on the 35 percent saving originally proposed by the European Commission, which would have ruled out some EU biofuels.

Member states are now considering reclassifying European biofuels to give new values for the greenhouse gas savings they can achieve, according to the European Council document.

Among the new figures, sugar beet ethanol is given a new greenhouse gas saving of 52 percent, up from 35 percent in the European Commission's initial calculations, bringing it back into line with parliament's recommendation.

"This has been done without any transparency," said a spokeswoman for European Biodiesel Board. "Maybe this can be used as a starting point, but in no way can this be used in the longer term without more scientific work and input from biofuels producers."

T&E's Urbancic said the figures appeared to ignore the damage biofuels can cause by using vegetable oils that would otherwise have been used in foods -- thereby creating fresh demand that encourages farmers to expand farmland into forests.

"The Commission and Council are still ignoring the absolutely critical issue of indirect land use change," she said. "They are being selective about the science they take on board."

(Reporting by Pete Harrison, Editing by Peter Blackburn)

Dupont exec. discusses ILUC

10/09/2008 -- E&ETV: "Later this month, U.S. EPA is expected to release a proposed rulemaking for implementing the lifecycle analysis requirements for biofuels under the renewable fuels standard. Estimating the emissions generated through the production of biofuels has been controversial, particularly with respect to how land-use changes affect emissions. During today's OnPoint, Jack Huttner, vice president of Dupont Danisco Cellulosic Ethanol, gives the biofuels industry's take on how EPA should proceed with the rulemaking. Huttner discusses how the inclusion of indirect land-use emissions could influence his industry's ability to meet the renewable fuels standard."

kyoto-wto-biofuels-climate regulation

a couple of relevant links that don't fully answer what climate aspects of biofuels can and cannot be regulated in the eyes of the WTO.  Under Kyoto, it's tough to regulate LUC according to Wetlands International:

http://news.mongabay.com/2007/1205-palm_oil_peatlands.html

http://www.wetlands.org/Whatwedo/Wetlandsandclimatechange/Peatlandsandclimatechangemitigation/UNClimateConventionUNFCCC/ActionsforUNFCCCtoreducepeatemissions/tabid/1293/Default.aspx

Ag. and Climate Change - New article from Royal Society

Can anyone access this? Greenhouse gas mitigation in agriculture Issue Volume 363, Number 1492 / February 27, 2008 Editor(s) Chris Pollock Jules Pretty Ian Crute Chris Leaver Howard Dalton Pages 789-813 Issue Title Theme Issue ‘Sustainable agriculture II’ compiled by Chris Pollock, Jules Pretty, Ian Crute, Chris Leaver and Howard Dalton DOI 10.1098/rstb.2007.2184

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Authors

Pete Smith¹, Daniel Martino², Zucong Cai³, Daniel Gwary⁴, Henry Janzen⁵, Pushpam Kumar⁶, Bruce McCarl⁷, Stephen Ogle⁸, Frank O'Mara⁹, Charles Rice¹⁰, Bob Scholes¹¹, Oleg Sirotenko¹², Mark Howden¹³, Tim McAllister⁵, Genxing Pan¹⁴, Vladimir Romanenkov¹⁵, Uwe Schneider¹⁶, Sirintornthep Towprayoon¹⁷, Martin Wattenbach¹, Jo Smith¹

¹School of Biological Sciences, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen AB24 3UU, UK
²Carbosur, Constituyente 1467/1202, Montevideo 11100, Uruguay
³Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, People's Republic of China
⁴University of Maiduguri, Maiduguri, Borno State 1069, Nigeria
⁵ Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Research Centre, Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada T1J 4B1
⁶Institute of Economic Growth, University Enclave, Delhi 110 007, India
⁷Department of Agricultural Economics, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA
⁸NREL, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523, USA
⁹School of Agriculture, Food Science and Veterinary Medicine, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland
¹⁰Department of Agronomy, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS 66506, USA
¹¹CSIR Division of Water, Environment and Forest Technology, Pretoria 0001, Republic of South Africa
¹² All-Russian Institute of Agricultural Meteorology, Obninsk, Kaluga Region 249020, Russia
¹³ CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, GPO Box 284, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory 2601, Australia
¹⁴College of Resources and Environment Sciences, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, People's Republic of China
¹⁵ Pryanishnikov All-Russian Institute of Agrochemistry (VNIIA), 127550 Moscow, Russia
¹⁶Departments of Geosciences and Economics, Hamburg University, 20146 Hamburg, Germany
¹⁷The Joint Graduate School of Energy and Environment, King Monkut's University of Technology, Thonburi, Bangmod, Bangkok 10140, Thailand

Abstract

Agricultural lands occupy 37% of the earth's land surface. Agriculture accounts for 52 and 84% of global anthropogenic methane and nitrous oxide emissions. Agricultural soils may also act as a sink or source for CO₂, but the net flux is small. Many agricultural practices can potentially mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the most prominent of which are improved cropland and grazing land management and restoration of degraded lands and cultivated organic soils. Lower, but still significant mitigation potential is provided by water and rice management, set-aside, land use change and agroforestry, livestock management and manure management. The global technical mitigation potential from agriculture (excluding fossil fuel offsets from biomass) by 2030, considering all gases, is estimated to be approximately 5500–6000Mt CO₂-eq.yr⁻¹, with economic potentials of approximately 1500–1600, 2500–2700 and 4000–4300Mt CO₂-eq.yr⁻¹ at carbon prices of up to 20, up to 50 and up to 100 USt CO < sub > 2 < /sub > -eq. < sup > -1 < /sup > , respectively. In addition, GHG emissions could be reduced by substitution of fossil fuels for energy production by agricultural feedstocks (e.g. crop residues, dung and dedicated energy crops). The economic mitigation potential of biomass energy from agriculture is estimated to be 640, 2240 and 16 000Mt CO < sub > 2 < /sub > -eq.yr < sup > -1 < /sup > at 0–20, 0–50 and 0–100 US t CO₂-eq.⁻¹, respectively.

Keywords

greenhouse gas, agriculture, mitigation, cropland management, grazing land, soil carbon

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Amazônia deve ficar fora de área para plantio de cana-de-açú car, anuncia ministro Stephanes

Amazônia deve ficar fora de área para plantio de cana-de-açúcar, anuncia ministro Stephanes - 08/10/2008

Local: Brasília - DF
Fonte: Agência Senado
Link: http://www.senado.gov.br

O ministro da Agricultura, Pecuária e Abastecimento, Reinhold Stephanes, anunciou há pouco a conclusão de estudo sobre o zoneamento agroecológico para produção de cana-de-açúcar, que ainda falta ser aprovado. Segundo informou, os biomas Amazônia e Pantanal não serão incluídos na área considerada apta para a produção da cana.

Stephanes participa de debate sobre a expansão das culturas para produção de biocombustíveis, em reunião na Comissão de Agricultura e Reforma Agrária (CRA), em conjunto com a Subcomissão dos Biocombustíveis.

Segundo Stephanes, ainda, o estudo que acaba de ser concluído aponta 65 milhões de hectares para plantio de cana, dos quais 37 milhões são áreas de pastagem degradadas. Ele também anunciou que a expansão da cana nos próximos oito anos será de cerca de cinco milhões de hectares.

climate registry reporting protocol

This document, by the The Climate Registry, details their definition of Scope 1, Scope 2, and Scope 3 emissions.

http://www.theclimateregistry.org/protocols.html

Tesco defends carbon label scheme - 21 May 2008 - BusinessGreen

Tesco defends carbon label scheme - 21 May 2008 - BusinessGreen: "Tesco has today launched an impassioned defence of its plans to put carbon labels on all its products, rejecting accusations that the labels confuse customers and insisting that its pilot scheme has already delivered significant tangible benefits."

New Sugarcanes to Deliver One-Two Energy Punch | BiobasedNews.com

New Sugarcanes to Deliver One-Two Energy Punch | BiobasedNews.com: "New Sugarcanes to Deliver One-Two Energy Punch
Oct 2, 2008 - By Jan Suszkiw, USDA-ARS

New varieties of sugarcane and other crops adapted to the U.S. Gulf Coast region are being developed for use in making ethanol as a cleaner-burning alternative to gasoline.

Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists, in cooperation with the Louisiana Agricultural Experiment Station (LAES) and the American Sugar Cane League, USA (ASCL), have already released three new varieties of 'energy sugarcane.' They're called that because of their high stalk contents of sugar and fiber, which could eventually serve as complementary ethanol feedstocks.

Raw-sugar processors now burn the fiber to generate heat that powers stalk-crushing and sugar-crystallization processes, notes Edward Richard, who leads the ARS Sugarcane Research Unit in Houma, La. The extracted sucrose sugar is sold for consumption or converted into ethanol. However, Richard anticipates that biorefineries will use the fiber as well, once technologies for converting cellulose into ethanol become economically feasible."

Biofuels Sustainability Framework

"Scientists call for sustainability framework for U.S. biofuels
from Bioenergy pact between Europe and Africa by Biopact team
In his State of the Union Address on January 23, 2007, President Bush stated that, in order to substantially lower foreign oil imports, 'We must increase the supply of alternative fuels, by setting a mandatory fuels standard to require 35 billion gallons of renewable and alternative fuels in 2017.'

This mandate coupled with a $1.01 ethanol refiner subsidy promised in the 2008 Farm Bill and a $45 subsidy per ton of biomass production for growers are putting energy needs ahead of environmental sustainability, according to an article in the October 3, 2008 issue of Science Magazine entitled 'Sustainable Biofuels Redux'."