7/30/2019 Biofuel cost and CO2 output reduction questioned.

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Canola seeds are used to make biodiesel.

(Credit: Photo by Lynn Ketchum)

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http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111129123255.htm

Cost-Effectiveness of Biofuels and Their Ability to Cut Fossil Fuel Use

Questioned

ScienceDaily (Nov. 29, 2011) A new study by economists at Oregon State University questions the cost-effectiveness of biofuels and says they would barely reduce fossil fuel use and would likely increasegreenhouse gas emissions.

The idea that biofuels can reduce dependency on fossil fuels and mitigate climate change has ledgovernments to promote them as substitutes for gasoline and petroleum-based diesel, using mandates andsubsidies, said Bill Jaeger, the lead author on the study.

"Our results suggest that existing biofuel policies have been very costly, produce negligible reductions infossil fuel use and increase, rather than decrease, greenhouse gas emissions," said Jaeger, a professor in theagricultural and resource economics department at OSU.

Biofuels were initially seen as a solution to energy and environmental problems, Jaeger said, because thecarbon dioxide that's emitted when they're burned is equivalent to what they had absorbed from theatmosphere when the crops were growing. Thus, biofuels were assumed to add little or no carbon dioxide to

the atmosphere.

But the bigger picture is more complex, Jaeger said, in part because biofuels are produced and transported using fossil fuels. For example, nitrogen fertilizer,which is made using natural gas, is used to grow corn for ethanol. Additionally, growing biofuel feedstocks can push food production onto previouslyunfarmed land, according to well-documented research, Jaeger said. When this new acreage is cleared and tilled, it can release carbon that accumulated overlong periods in soil and vegetation, thus increasing greenhouse gas emissions, he said.

The costs of these side effects tend to be overlooked by policies that focus only on gallon-for-gallon substitutions, he added.

The researchers focused on the major mandated and currently used biofuels worldwide: corn ethanol, soybean biodiesel, cellulosic ethanol from switchgrassgrown in the United States, canola biodiesel produced in Europe, and sugarcane ethanol produced in Brazil and exported to the United States or Europe.

They evaluated them in terms of their contribution to reducing fossil fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions. They also compared their costs and effectivenessto two alternative policies: an increase in the gas tax and the implementation of energy efficiency improvements.

Their results indicated that all of the biofuel crops were much less cost-effective than the two alternative policies in terms of reducing greenhouse gasemissions and fossil fuel use.

"Each dollar spent on energy improvement programs would be 20 times more effective in reducing fossil fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions than a similarcost for the corn ethanol program," Jaeger said. "Likewise, a gas tax increase would be 21 times more effective than promoting cellulosic ethanol."

Overall, it was estimated that U.S.-produced biofuels would cost between 20 and 31 times more than energy efficiency improvements that would reduce gasconsumption by 1 percent. The study also reported that combining a gas tax increase with energy efficiency improvements could reduce U.S. fossil fuel use bymore than 15 percent (or cut petroleum fuel use by more than 35 percent).

Next, the researchers looked at how much it would cost to achieve governmental targets for biofuel use and what the impact would be on fossil fuel use. In theU.S., the Renewable Fuel Standard calls for 15 billion gallons of conventional biofuel sourc es such as corn ethanol; 1 billion gallons of biomass-based diesel;16 billion gallons of advanced cellulosic biofuels; and 4 billion gallons of other advanced biofuels to be used in transportation fuel by 2022. U.S. corn ethanolproduction has already reached 13 billion gallons, Jaeger said, but cellulosic ethanol, a so-called second-generation biofuel, is not yet commercially producedin the U.S.

The researchers concluded that all of these biofuel mandates combined would reduce fossil fuel use by less than 2.5 percent, or the same amount that a gas taxincrease of 25 cents per gallon could achieve, but at an estimated cost of $67 billion compared with a cost of $6 billion with a gas tax.

To directly compare the cost-effectiveness of the biofuels with the two alternative approaches, part of the researchers' analysis evaluated the biofuels incombination with forest carbon sequestration practices so that they would produce the same mix of reductions in fossil fuel use and greenhouse gas emissionsas a gas tax increase.

The study did not take into account the effect that increased production of biofuels might have on water use, pollution and food prices, all of which raiseadditional concerns about the merits of promoting biofuels, according to Jaeger.

The study is called Biofuel Economics in a Setting of Multiple Objectives and Unintended Consequences and was published in Renewable and SustainableEnergy Reviews.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Oregon State University.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Journal Reference:

1. William K. Jaeger, Thorsten M. Egelkraut. Biofuel economics in a setting of multiple objectives and unintended consequences .Renewable andSustainable Energy Reviews, 2011; 15 (9): 4320 DOI: 10.1016/j.rser.2011.07.118

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MLA

Oregon State University (2011, November 29). Cost-effectiveness of biofuels and their ability to cut fossil fuel use questioned. ScienceDaily. RetrievedNovember 19, 2012, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111129123255.htm

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2011.07.118http://www.orst.edu/http://oregonstate.edu/ua/ncs/archives/2011/nov/osu-study-questions-cost-effectiveness-biofuels-and-their-ability-cut-fossil-fuel-