Arctic Heat Dump - Phil Chapman & Pournelle

I got this by way of Jerry Pournelle’s web site and it reports that the recent global temperature decline is essentially of the wall when compared to all past experience. We have been confronted by several apparently contradictory phenomena relating to recent temperatures and the confusion out there is now palpable.

For the past decade for sure and probably the preceding decade we have witnessed a measurable and obvious increase of the heat content of the atmosphere of the Northern Hemisphere. This was sufficient to erode a substantial amount of the perennial Arctic Sea Ice.
This past summer we had a run away reduction in that same ice sped along by a major change in the wind system.

We must now accept the likelihood that this wind shift actually drew off most of the surplus heat in the lower latitudes and shifted it into the Arctic were it melted a huge amount of the sea ice. With the heat now fully removed, we are now been reintroduced to a more familiar winter, and a bad one too.

This describes an efficient global heat balancing mechanism, that has nothing whatsoever to do with anthropogenic global warming per se, except to demonstrate that if we ever do have an effect on the climate, the Earth is more than ready to clean our clock.

We may now experience a heat pump cycle that will operate on an orderly basis until such time as volcanism drops the temperature severely.

To this point, everyone has been nicely confounded by two extraordinary and unprecedented events that no model even starts to predict. This makes it clear that the real anomaly is the wind shift rather than the results that moved all that heat into the Arctic.

This also suggests that for it to happen again, the heat buildup may have to accumulate for another forty years and it is very likely related to the forty year hurricane cycle. Again, this summer’s behavior will be important to monitor.

Global Cooling

Dr. Phil Chapman was born in Australia and was a South Polar Explorer before coming to the the United States and becoming a US citizen and astronaut. He was one of the original members of the Citizens Advisory Council on National Space Policy which formed in 1980 to write the Space and Defense policy papers for the incoming Reagan Administration Transition Team (Jerry Pournelle, PhD, Chairman)

Jerry:

As straws in the wind, note that it snowed in Baghdad in January, for the first time in a century. There is still snow in the Australian Alps at midsummer, never before seen. The extent of the Antarctic sea-ice last austral winter exceeded all records. These are of course mere anecdotal evidence, not to be taken seriously.

However, the four major organizations that track the global average temperature have now released their results for 2007. They are the Hadley Centre in the UK (Hadley), the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), Remote Sensing Systems, Inc., in Santa Rosa, CA, (RSS) and the Christy group at the University of Alabama at Huntsville (UAH). The first three have been alarmed about GW for years, while the UAH group (which uses satellite MSU measurements) has tended to be skeptical.

All four of these studies report an astonishing drop in global temperature during 2007, between 0.59 and 0.75 degrees C. You can see graphs of their data at

http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/02/19/january-2008-4-sources-say-globally-cooler-in-the-past-12-months/ .

This is by far the fastest change in global temperature on record. It is probably just a blip – but if the climate stabilizes at this level, it will have wiped out all the increase since 1920, and the whole GW thing will have gone away. Moreover, if 2008 shows another decrease of this magnitude, we will have to consider seriously the possibility that the 20-year transition to the next Ice Age has begun.

To paraphrase Eugene O'Neill, The Ice Age Cometh?

If this is true, the consequences are appalling. Most of North America and all of Europe north of the Alps will be under a mile of ice by 2030. This means that most of the advanced countries except Australia will cease to exist. There can be

Nice try, but this is not even slightly possible. The atmospheric moisture simply does not exist even it the land temperature went to a polar regime.

little doubt that the need to survive will trump any international norms of behavior: I would expect that Europe would invade Africa and the US would invade Mexico, accepting genocide of the indigenous populations as an unfortunate necessity, given the absolute need for lebensraum.

Perhaps we could delay or stop the transition by using nuclear explosions to release floods of methane (a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2) from the hydrate deposits under the Arctic permafrost and on the continental shelves, and/or by mounting a major effort to reduce the albedo by shoveling dirt over northern snowfields. Unfortunately, the reputations and income of far too many influential people now depend on the existence of the GW threat, and they will resist recognizing the truth as long as possible. In any case, I don't expect politicians to have the chutzpah to act before it is too late.

Until we find out whether the present cold is transient or getting worse, the Precautionary Principle demands that we all do our duty by guzzling as much gasoline and emitting as much CO2 and CH4 as possible. Flatulence is now a patriotic duty.

This is of course probably just a nightmare – but I will be watching the global temperature data this year with considerable interest.
Phil

PS. Get well, old friend. We need you
===========

Global Warming, if real, threatens longer growing seasons in the North Temperate Zones, at a cost of some rise in sea level. A new ice age is a disaster without precedent. Core borings in lakes in England and Belgium show that the area near the English Channel went from deciduous trees to under many feet of ice in fewer than 100 years at the last Ice Age onset.

There are ways to counter warming and cooling, but they are not cheap; and first there have to be actual scientists, as opposed to the grant gatherers, trained seals, and headline grabbers who now pose as climate scientists. The Peer Review process has systematically excluded publication of any contrary opinions.

And yet it is now as it has been: the modelers see man-made global warming. The observers have never seen it, and now when honest admit they see cooling.
Political correctness demands that science submit to correct opinion. It is Voodoo Science in the real sciences, not just the social sciences.

We sow the wind.

Of course this year may be a blip; but it doesn't look that way. Discussion in mail.
JEP 0300 Sleepless in Studio City

January Diary for Northern Hemisphere

I will be having more to say on this, but this is a good story list on the pervasiveness of the foul winter weather in the Northern Hemisphere. We all got our butts kicked.

January 30, 2008

Global Warming News - Jan 2008

Real News Stories To Share With Global-Warming Skeptics

EUROPE:During the first week of 2008, A bitterly cold winter storm pummeled parts of Europe, according to an article from AP. The storm killed at least three sailors when a ship sank in rough seas, and piled up snow that stranded thousands at airports, on mountain roads and in remote villages.

Authorities in northeastern Bulgaria declared a state of emergency, with the army called in to help civil defense officials clear roads and reach stranded motorists. Some 311 Bulgarian villages were left without electricity and dozens were cut off without food supplies or fresh water, authorities said. The northern Danube municipality of Ruse declared a state of emergency after heavy snow blocked many roads, said Andrei Ivanov, chief of the Balkan country's civil defense service. Temperatures fell to 5 below zero, while snow drifts reached more than 6 feet in parts of the country and hundreds of motorists were trapped on mountain roads.

Wave hits lighthouse at Varna, Bulgaria Jan. 2

At least three crewmen were killed when a Bulgarian ship carrying scrap metal sank during a storm on the Azov Sea between Ukraine and Russia, officials said. The Vanessa was carrying a crew of 10 and a Ukrainian pilot who was guiding the ship as it approached the Kerch Strait, which connects the Azov Sea to the Black Sea, said Sergei Petrov, a spokesman for the Emergency Situations Ministry for southern Russia. Rescuers pulled one survivor and three bodies from the sea, where waves were as high as 10 feet.

The cold spell also caused problems in neighboring Romania, where Bucharest's two main airports were closed. Thousands of passengers were stranded when the airports were closed due to heavy snowfall. The snow also blocked many roads in the south, forcing the closure of at least one border crossing with Bulgaria and prompting train delays.Parts of Turkey and Greece, as well as Western Europe, were also affected. In Turkey's capital of Ankara, snow caused traffic jams and accidents, but no injuries were reported. Temperatures in Greece fell to 1 below zero in the north of the country, where snow blanketed roads.

Snowfall & high winds in Greece, Jan. 29

In Western Europe, ice and snow disrupted traffic. The Mont-Blanc tunnel linking France and Italy was closed to trucks because sharp temperature differences between the two sides threatened to disrupt the tunnel's ventilation. A Boeing 737 arriving from Morocco, slid off an icy runway at an airport in Deauville, northern France. The 169 passengers were evacuated unharmed.

INDIA:Unusually cold weather in northern India has been blamed for at least 46 deaths in the state of Uttar Pradesh, and others in Kashmir and Punjab. Mosques in the valley said special prayers. Schools in Delhi were closed until January 13th because of the weather. More than 1 million children stayed home. The temperatures reported in (the normally warm) low-lying areas were around the freezing point of 32 degrees Fahrenheit.On January 26, according to a Times of India article, India's financial capital Mumbai reached a low temperature of 10.8 degrees Celsius, the lowest in 45 years. Amritsar was the coldest place in Punjab with the mercury tumbling seven notches below normal to settle at a low of minus 1.6 degrees C. Frigid temperatures in Punjab and Haryana forced residents to light bonfires.

Punjab residents light fires to keep warm

IRAN:On January 12th, it was reported in the Tehran Times that President Mahmud Ahmadinejad chaired a session, examining ways to solve problems caused by the recent two weeks of unprecedented cold in the northern provinces of the country. Government ministers, the governors of four provinces, as well as a number of other state and military officials were present at the meeting. Ahmadinejad visited the province to look into the problems, including gas supply cuts in certain regions. Mazandaran Province, mostly its central and eastern parts, suffered fuel shortages over a 10 day period.

Snowfall in Tehran, Jan. 28

According to an article in the Gulf Daily News, some areas of Iran saw snow for the first time in years. Officials said a number of people had died from the cold or in traffic accidents caused by the weather. Government offices, schools and universities were closed in some regions to conserve fuel.

SAUDI ARABIA:During the same period, northern parts of Saudi Arabia were covered with snow. Schools, mosques and administrative bodies were paralyzed, RIA Novosti reported. The oil-rich kingdom was hit with subzero temperatures and snow storms with freezing winds of up to 50 km/h (30mp/h). Some regions experienced problems with water supplies as pipes froze, and livestock died from the cold. Saudi national media said the winter is the coldest in the country for 20 years. Morning and afternoon prayers are being combined in many mosques because of the morning cold.

Snow in Saudi Arabia, Jan. 11

IRAQ:On January 11th, snow fell in Baghdad for the first time in 100 years. Rare snowfalls were also recorded in the west and center of Iraq, plunging temperatures to zero degrees Centigrade (32 degrees Fahrenheit) and even colder. The snow in Baghdad, which melted quickly, began falling before dawn and continued until after 9 am, residents said. Snow also fell in the northern mountainous regions of Iraq, which is not uncommon. "Baghdad has never seen snow falling in living memory," said Dawood Shakir, director of the meteorology department. "These snowfalls are linked to the climate change that is happening everywhere."

First Baghdad snowfall in 100 years, Jan. 11

CHINA:In the second half of the month, China was hit with the most brutal winter weather to hit the nation in 50 years according to an article in the Times Online. Snow, ice and bitter cold crippled thousands of trains and trucks loaded with coal and food. There were widespread power shortages. More than 800,000 residents in Chenzhou, the main city in Hunan province, had been without power and water supplies for five days (when the article was written). Snow added to energy shortages by halting the supply of coal. Railway tracks were blocked by snow.

Chinese soldiers shovel snow, Jan. 29

VOA News reported that China's leaders were rushing to oversee disaster relief efforts. Heavy snowfalls and freezing temperatures left dozens of people dead, and millions of others stranded who were trying to return home for the main holiday of the year. Some train travelers at the Beijing West Rail Station had been waiting for more than a week to get on a train (when the article was written). The situation was particularly severe in the southern city of Guangzhou, where tens of thousands of people were stranded in and around the main train station.

50,000 stranded at Nanjing Railway Station

USA:The year started off with a cold wave across the USA during the first week of January. The Butane-Propane News (BPN) of California issued a report that said propane inventories fell sharply that week caused by "strong demand".

In Florida, during the same period, citrus growers reported "only minor damage... from a blast of cold air, even as snow flurries fell in at least one part of the Sunshine State." Temperatures in many areas of northern Florida dropped into the 20s.

Citrus grower checks grove, Jan. 3

Upstate New York had single-digit readings and wind chills well below zero. It was 8 degrees below zero in Watertown, NY, with the wind chill making it feel like 20 below. In Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks, it was 17 below with calm winds. The lowest reading in Maine was 23 below near Ashland, the National Weather Service said.Global-warming then abated somewhat as temperatures became milder for the next two weeks. The global-warming skeptics started to gloat and point to this as proof that global-warming was over forever. But the cold weather started to return as arctic air building over the Polar regions of Canada and Siberia, pushed southwards across the U.S. in a phenomenon commonly known as the "Siberian Express". The NFC Championship Game played at Green Bay, Wisconsin on January 20th, was the third coldest playoff game in NFL history.

Green Bay fan at NFC championship game

At the end of January, heavy snow storms hammered the western states from Washington to Arizona, closing schools and government offices, causing widespread havoc on roads and even shutting down one ski resort. On January 28th, a search was under way for three snowmobilers missing in the Colorado mountains. The roofs of several businesses collapsed under the weight of snow in northern Idaho, while avalanches forced the evacuations of dozens of homes. The Navajo Nation declared an emergency on its sprawling reservation. About 20 inches of snow fell around Coeur d'Alene in northern Idaho. The San Juan Mountains of southern Colorado were socked with 30 inches of snow and wind gusts as high as 100 mph.

In southeastern and south central Minnesota, a band of snow falling at up to 1 inch per hour was accompanied by winds gusting at 20 to 40 miles per hour on January 28th, prompting the National Weather Service to issue a blizzard warning. The bad weather was followed by bitter cold temperatures according to KSTP.com. The conditions were being driven by the arctic cold front.

In Chicago, a temperature plunge of 50 degrees accompanied by 40 m.p.h. winds, dropped temperatures to zero Fahrenheit with windchills of 40- to 50-degree-below-zero according to the Chicago Tribune. Over the full 138 years of Chicago's official weather records, a comparable plunge occurred just 17 times.

Chicago firefighter in bitter cold, Jan. 29

CANADA:Much like the U.S., Canada experienced cold temperatures early in the month and then got a respite until late in the month when they were likewise hit by the "Siberian Express". According to a Canada.com article, residents of the Prairies dealt with blustery winds and deadly temperatures dipping into the minus 50s Celsius, while other areas faced blizzard conditions.

Tow truck operator in -32C Saskatchewan, Jan. 29

In Saskatchewan, a three-year-old girl was found frozen to death on January 29th and the search was continuing for her one-year-old baby sister. The father of the children was found suffering from frostbite near his home, approximately 250 kilometres east of Saskatoon where the temperatures were about -35 C. An avalanche hit a popular ski resort south of Calgary; no injuries were reported. In the Maritimes, the weather was not quite as severe, but snow and sleet brought havoc, leaving thousands without power in Prince Edward Island. In Vancouver, heavy snowfalls caused commuter chaos.

Uranium City in northern Saskatchewan (about 1,340 kilometres north of Saskatoon) earned the ignominious distinction of being the coldest place on the continent at -59 C, said Environment Canada meteorologist Bob Cormier. It was followed closely by Aulavik National Park on Banks Island in the Northwest Territories at -57 C. A tiny hamlet in the middle of Alberta, called Dapp, registered -53 C.

RUSSIA:On January 16th in Siberia, temperatures were being forecast to hit minus 55 degrees Celsius (minus 67 degrees Fahrenheit). Government agencies were placed on high alert as freezing temperatures had already caused overloading of electricity grids and power interruptions in the regions of Irkutsk and Tomsk because of overused home heaters. At least two deaths and more than 30 frost-bite cases had already been reported in Irkutsk (when the article was written). Average January temperatures in large Siberian cities usually range between minus 15 degrees Celsius and minus 39 degrees Celsius. On Saturday, January 19th, the temperature in Ojmjakon, Siberia actually fell to -60.2C (-76F). Schools were closed down in at least four regions because of the cold.

Temperatures fall to -60C in Siberia

In neighboring Georgia, whose climate is subtropical, temperatures plunged to as low as minus 35 degrees Celsius. Lake Paliastomi in western Georgia froze for the first time in 50 years, reported Rustavi-2 television.

Dr. Oleg Sorokhtin, Merited Scientist of Russia and fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, writing for RIA Novosti in Moscow, suggests that Russians should stock up on "bikinis and bermuda shorts". In an excellent article, he explains how the current global-cooling trend has reached its peak, and how global-warming will now begin in earnest.

Johannes Lehmann interview on terra Preta

I came across this recent interview on the net by Matthew Wright with Johannes Lehmann. He is the leading academic voice on the subject of terra preta soils. It presents the current state of work in the area. I continue to be convinced that the earthen kiln method replicated with today’s tools is the quickest way to enter the field trial format. Mechanized solutions have to evolve.

An important open question is to what extent the Amazon Indians used legumes with their corn – cassava culture. It seems likely in view of the corn – bean squash culture of the North Americans.

I would like to see squash properly reintroduced as a staple into our diets. I always knew that they cubed the flesh and dried it out for storage. I have since learned that they also smoked it. This would have real culinary potential which has been lacking.


Drawing down carbon - Johannes Lehmann of Cornell University talks Bio Char

Fri, 2008-03-07 07:23 — admin

We talk to Professor Johannes Lehmann about Bio Char

Podcast Available

Matthew Wright: Following on from our interview last week with Adriana Downie from Best Energies, we've got doctor Johannes Lehmann, whose an associate professor of soil fertility management and soil bio-chemistry at New York's Cornell University. Prior to this he co-ordinated an interdisciplinary research project on nutrient and carbon management in the central Amazon for the Federal Research Institution of Forestry at the University of Bayreuth, Germany.

His work experience includes applied and basic research in Sudan, Togo, Tanzania, Kenya, Malawi, Brazil, Columbia and Ecuador. Professor Lehmann's publications range from dry land research of nutrient recycling irrigation systems to the rehabilitation of highly weathered soils in the humid tropics. From research on phosphorous dynamics in heavily manured soils to basic principles of carbon recycling in soils.

Most recently he's been talking about terra-preta, agrichar, the ability to draw down atmospheric carbon. We'll see if we've got Dr. Lehmann there.

Good morning.

Johannes Lehmann: Good morning, and for us its good afternoon actually.

MW: Yes, good afternoon, because its late afternoon in NY and we've got you on the line from there. Thank you for joining us. Tell us a bit about yourself.

JL: Like you said, I'm a faculty member here at Cornell Uni. I'm in a dept called Crop and Soil Sciences. So, I'm a soil scientist, a soil bio-geochemist.

I'm very interested in understanding how soils work and especially how nutrient cycle, how carbon is sequestered in soil. When I was working 10 yrs ago in the central Amazon, I lived in Manaus in the central Amazon for three yrs working on degraded Amazonian soils. I couldn't help but stumble on these so-called terra-preta soils, black earth as it was in Portuguese. These black soils are scattered all over the Amazon and are very rich in humus and carbon and very fertile, and that's where all this started.

MW: So tell us a bit more about those black soils, how they came about, their longevity, and things like that.

JL: That's really quite a fascinating story. Also, the discovery of these soils, we have the earliest scientific descriptions come from about the 1860's. At that point it was absolutely unclear how these soils originated and where they came from.

There were wild theories until the 1980's that speculated whether these were soils from volcanic fallout or some old lakes that dried out; but as it turned out in the 90's only, that these soils were inhabited by indigenous populations before the arrival of the Europeans, which around 1500. The first person to travel down the central Amazon was Francisco de Orellana. He reported back to the Spanish court that there was a thriving population in the central Amazon. Productive landscapes, intensive agriculture, very large, sophisticated civilisations. Well, the Spanish came back 50 years later and the found nothing.

Then nothing was done about that. One thought that Francisco de Orellana was a liar and a cheater that just made up stories to impress the Spanish court. But now it turns out that we find these remnants of these civilisations and they provide us important clues. In turn, they taught us very important lessons that we now build a new strategy to sequester carbon and mitigate climate change on. And that's built on these soils that are clearly originating from these populations that lived there from 500 years before present to the oldest ones reported are about 8000 years old.

So in this period the populations enriched the soil with organic matter and this is still the fertility and organic matter that we see today that originated from these indigenous populations up to 7000 years ago. And its still there, in an environment where there should not be a fertile soil, where there should not be a soil with high organic matter content, and its still there after such a long period of time.

MW: So that fantastic, and the actual process to get the terra-preta is a great way to extract the energy value from biomass and even, perhaps low-caloric value biomass. Is that the case?

JL: Yes, this is a fantastic opportunity to weave this knowledge, or this insight, from old soils into modern land use and bio-energy. But let me just step one second back, its also important to realise the properties of these so-called terra-preta are not just built on ?um, that there is more humus, more organic matter in these soils. It's a very specific type of organic matter that's in these soils. It is a charcoal-like substance, a very black substance. We know of charcoal from the B-B-Q. But this is charcoal soil, and this type of organic matter is not only very stable, but it does also what other organic matter does in much more efficient way. So, its not just hanging out there a much longer period of time, but it also does all the good things that humus and organic matter does in a much better way than manure or compost could do.

And that's where these intriguing properties really, I think, are driving the current effort. And as you said, there now in the contemporary land use there are extremely exciting opportunities to produce such charcoal-like substance, we call this substance these days actually biochar because it is produced for the purpose of soil amendment, not primarily to put on your B-B-Q.

That is, of course, very exciting for the bioenergy community, because that can be produced with a certain type, with a certain method, of producing energy by using biomass. And it seems you have talked with the companies that are engaging with these technologies. The technology is called pyrolysis. Its sort of cooking biomass in a pot with the lid on, and when you do that, when your water's gone when your spaghetti's? um, then you will have a black substance and not spaghetti anymore. And that's exactly biochar. In other speak, it would be a thermal degradation of biomass, and you end up with this black substance. A bioenergy concept exists that builds on this pyrolysis, and as a by-product, that is this biochar.

Until about four years, 5 years ago, the companies and research programs that concentrated on pyrolysis were primarily concerned with producing bioenergy, until these scientific communities that looked at terra-preta and the scientific and companies that looked at pyrolysis bioenergy found out that they have a great opportunity to work together. That you can actually produce bionenergy by this process called pyrolysis and still retain a significant amount, maybe in some cases more than half, of the biomass carbon as a biochar that you can then return to soil and simulate a very important factor, why these terra-preta soils in the Amazon are so fertile for such a long period of time.

MW: At Beyond Zero Emissions, we believe in taking our atmospheric carbons as close to near zero emissions as possible, and then trying to balance that. Of course, agrichar can be one way of doing that. Then we're talking about actually pulling down the carbon debt. That's the carbon that the West has emitted in its industrialisation, which is about 200 billion tonnes. Do you see enough land that's appropriate to sort of achieve that sort of pull-down in a short period, in 10, 20, 30 years sort of thing?

JL: Absolutely, and I can tell you why I think that, but what I explain now is of course a theoretical potential that's not fettered??? 11:19 against economic realities of competing strategies and political influences. Why I think it is possible, because you can do calculations and look at waste biomass in agriculture or forest thinnings, agricultural by-products, crop residues, etc. These taken together would be more than enough to put a significant dent into the rising co2 curve. Conversely, there are more than enough soils that would need boosted soil fertility and could very well need this biochar. It is entirely conceivable that this can play a major role.

Another factor is that this is a technology that already exists. It is not something where we speculate that we have the development of 5 or 10 years until we get to a stage where it's technologically feasible. This is technologically feasible right now. And it is not a very complicated technology. It is a very ancient technology in its basic function and charcoal making is one of the most ancient technologies that humanity invented. It's a very, very old technology. However, producing energy from that technology requires quite a bit more technology, but the mere process of converting biomass into biochar is a very ancient and basic technology and can be done in massive proportions within a very short period of time. I think it's a very important opportunity that we should have a very close look at.

Of course, there's a multitude of competing and old intelligent solutions, to our energy, as well as climate, problem. And I think that there are other bioenergy options that deserve a very close look and have definitely a place in a portfolio of options. But I can't see that there's another opportunity such as pyrolysis with a biochar return to soil that offers clear carbon-negative bioenergy where for every unit of energy that you produce you're actually net-sequestering carbon in the terrestrial ecosystem, or anywhere on Earth.

MW: Just to let listeners know, we're talking to Johannes Lehmann whose an expert in soil fertility and bio-geochemistry. You're with Radio 3CR and its 8:45AM.

Dr. Lehmann, we've talked about the pyrolysis machine and how we can actually cook up the biomass, which can be a biomass residual from cropping, or something like that, and then getting the synthetic gas which is carbon monoxide and hydrogen and turning that into a viable fuel, and then sequestering that residual char and with each new crop we can perhaps pull down 50% of the carbon, (by mass of that actual crop)?you're giving us a solution to those two things and also you talked about the fact that we could probably get marginal lands and restore those. So this is going a long way. We're taking marginal farm land and restoring that, we're drawing down atmospheric carbon to start getting rid of that carbon debt, and we're creating a fuel source. Can it do all these things?

JL: It can where its given the opportunity to. You have to realise that there are of course a lot of soils that are already good. A farmer in the American Midwest that already harvests 9 tonne of corn grain, or 8 tonne of corn grain, that farmer will certainly not double the yields of their crops. But they might be able to reduce the fertiliser amounts because biochar in soil is able to retain more of the fertiliser that is added to soil and thereby possibly reducing the costs of fertiliser additions and other unwanted offside effects such as groundwater pollution or eutrophication of surface waters. That is always a question of the site that you are working at and the objectives that you follow and the priorities.

I have talked with farmers who are right now producing biochar on their farms with large scale pyrolysis machines that are absolutely not interested in producing bioenergy. They're completely content in producing biochar from sustainable biomass production and putting that biochar in soils without even thinking of bioenergy at this point. There might be others who are interested in remediating soils in remote areas in mine??? soils where it also would be difficult to transport the energy anywhere else; it would cost more energy than the energy is worth begin with.

If the objective is to remediate soils and its worth your while doing that without harvesting the energy that is gained from this process, then that's fine too. You might in some cases opt for um, if energy prices are high, and at the moment you have a problem selling your biochar, you might produce only energy. The versatility is really great and you can decide which markets you want to tap.

MW: Given the finite resources, and the finite land mass to feed an ever growing population around the world, it's generally the case that you're going to get the heat by-product and you're going to have the char at the end, so I guess it would be best that all things are harvested from the process. Would you agree with that?

JH: Most definitely. Absolutely, but there's a limitation. If you have a remote area, if you're producing energy in a remote area, you have 2 choices. Either you're transporting the biomass which costs a lot of energy or you're producing the energy where the biomass is produced and then you have to transport the energy to some end user. The proximity of biomass production, energy production, and energy consumption is key for any bioenergy concept. There are clear thresholds from which distances this system would not work any more.

But that means it has great strength in distributed energy production, for farms, for small farms, I'm thinking for instance Africa where there you have a lot of energy use from biomass individually from households, and in small villages. If these households and these villages could be equipped with pyrolysis bioenergy rather than complete burning of their biomass, they could get the same amount of energy out of the biomass that their using, cook the same amount of food per day that they were cooking with their identical amount of biomass and still retain about half of their carbon to be returned to their ever degrading soils. This could mean a tremendous change that would be largely driven by the need to restore soil fertility but by the same token possibly make a significant contribution to mitigating climate change.

MW: And of course, that what we're here for at Beyond Zero. Dr. Lehmann, in terms of, before we touched on those high yield farms where there was possibly decreased requirement for fertilisers, and a lot of fertilisers are actually sourced from petroleum products which of course have embodied carbon in the process of exploration, extraction, distribution, cracking?do you see that that is the case, that we could mitigate the need for much of those petroleum-based fertilisers?

JL: Our hope is to demonstrate clearly that we can significantly reduce the need. Any plant needs nitrogen. For instance, nitrogen is the single most energy intensive, therefore carbon intensive fertiliser nutrient. Typically around 50% of the energy that goes into any given agricultural product that you buy off the shelf comes still from that energy used for the nitrogen fertiliser during production on land. So achieving a significant reduction in the use of that nitrogen fertiliser could have a significant effect on the energy consumption and carbon balance of an agricultural product. I would be perfectly content if we can reduce the nitrogen need of the cereal crop by 20 or 30%. That would be a huge achievement.

Of course we will never be able to completely reduce it unless we are working with legumes, and biological nitrogen fixation, which is entirely feasible as well. But in intensive role production in much of the world, unfortunately, most farmers still have to work, presumably, with mineral fertilisers. But I believe we will be able to demonstrate that these can be reduced.

Then there's always still a significant jump to make from demonstrating on a research farm, or even on farm research, that you can decrease and still get the same amount of yield and the adoption by farmers. So that will be a much more difficult sell to get farmers to decrease their fertiliser amounts from a yield safety perspective. But eventually, and with rising energy, and therefore rising fertiliser prices, I believe that there is enough economic reason and economic incentive to look for any opportunities to be able to reduce fertiliser additions.

MW: So the reduced requirements for nitrates and nitrogen, could that actually help with the introduction of bio-fertilisers; the fact that you don't need to go as far if you combine the two opportunities?

JL: That could very well be. That is really a far-reaching question, and whether we can actually achieve to combine the two and package an attractive management scenario. That would be the ultimate goal, and I can see that there is a lot of merit in researching that further.

MW: Also, now I understand that there are a lot of trials under way. How are they progressing? Can you give us an idea of what the early results are, and if there was a lot of help and assistance, how quickly could we get this stuff commercial?

JL: That is really the single greatest challenge; to scale it from laboratory investigations to significant farm-scale trials. And why this is a challenge? Because for doing that you need a significant amount of that biochar for doing field scale studies. And the catch 22 at this moment is that there are not enough companies around that produce a biochar with facilities of the scale that would be conceivably be installed in the future, in a biochar economy. Therefore the research is greatly hindered by the availability of commercial plants that work on this basis. And since these are quite significant power plants, this is also an undertaking that can't be just done by individual researchers in their programs. These are university wide, or program wide initiatives of a 'Department of Energy' scale that is beyond research scale. That is a huge drawback of the current situation. But the handful or so of trials that are under way, and a significant amount of these trials are actually situated in Australia, so far they all show very promising results but also some results where we clearly see that there is absolutely the need for optimisation to biochar products. Not all biochar products are efficient to the same extent, and there might be even be some biochar products that are detrimental to plant growth, similar to any fertiliser. You can apply too much of a fertiliser and kill your crop. You need to have the right dosage and the right composition of fertiliser. And the same applies to compost or manures, and of course the same applies to biochars.

The density of data, and the intensity of research, needs to be accelerated to a significant extent to fine tune and identify those biochar types that are the most effective for increasing crop yields. But that can be done by extension agencies, and on extension farms, with on-farm trials very quickly, within a couple of years. Again, the technology is there, we've just got to implement it.

MW: Great. Thank you, Dr. Lehmann. We've been speaking to Johannes Lehmann from Cornell University, who's an expert in soil fertility management and soil bio-geochemistry. It was a most interesting and intriguing discussion, and we'd love to have you back on the show in a few months if you'd be happy to do that.

JL: It was a pleasure.

MW: Fantastic. And I think our listeners will agree that we're all the wiser now. Just in one or two words, do you think we can start some initial, small-scale commercial stuff right away, or are we five years away.

JL: Absolutely, we should be starting this right away, and hopefully that will enable the farmers, that are ultimately the best researchers, to kick into gear and try this out and find out what works best for their soils and for their crops.

MW: Great. Thank you Dr. Lehmann. You're with the Beyond Zero show and just to wrap up we'll see you all tomorrow at the Sustainability Convergence which is at Northcote High School?

US Carbon Policy - Kelpie Wilson

This report by Kelpie Wilson brings us up to date on the present state of carbon policy in the US and I am pleased to see that a lot of very positive steps are been taken particularly at the state level. The international and national press really fails to cover the regional initiatives well even when they truly impact in the larger arena. Do you really think that a major success in California will fail to resonate elsewhere?

In fact, the best strategy for generating contentious change is to find a friendly regional player who helps prove the case. The classic example of that strategy in Canada came with the creation of the universal medical insurance system. One province (Saskatchewan) grabbed the nettle and made it work. Within five years the political support was so overwhelming that it was made a national system. It will never be perfect – just ask the critics – but for 45 years, a person struck down by ill health has had immediate access to care.

Arnie in California is very much taking that approach. He represents as many folks as most European countries and knows that there is no point waiting for Washington to lead when you have room to lead yourself and in the process grab the agenda and bend it to your state’s needs.

Whatever we may think of the oncoming carbon economy, postponing involvement will likely mean paying top dollar later. If you snooze, you lose. In any case this report updates real progress.

While we are here and talking about California, I do wish they would rein in the rhetoric on global warming. The place is desert, largely watered by sporadic rainfall and seriously prone to droughts with a clearly finite supply of fresh water requiring diligent management. If you run out of water, it is because the will was not there to manage it properly. This is another place that seriously needs solar powered atmospheric water harvesting though that will fail to provide far inland in the great valley’s rain shadow climate.

Coming Soon - The Carbon Economy

By Kelpie Wilson

t r u t h o u t | Report - Tuesday 04 March 2008

By refusing to sign on to the Kyoto climate treaty, Americans have insulated ourselves from the complexities of the carbon market the European Union has been trading in for the last three years. But that state of ignorance, while not exactly blissful, is about to end.

On February 26 and 27, the international carbon trading financial community descended on San Francisco to present Carbon Forum America, the first American carbon trading conference to include a full trade show featuring 80 companies that manage carbon credit assets and trades, negotiate contracts, validate projects, and perform various other market services.

Why California and why now? California is the US leader on climate policy and now is the time the tea leaves are spelling out a coming certainty for investors. The first serious US climate change measure, the Lieberman-Warner bill, has passed out of a Senate committee. All three front-running presidential candidates have acknowledged a cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions is inevitable. US regional programs like the Western Climate Initiative are picking up steam, and 32 states have now adopted hard emissions targets.

The conference sponsor, the International Emissions Trading Association, is banking on the idea US investors will embrace a worldwide carbon trading market that reached $60 billion in 2007 and could mushroom to $300 billion or more very soon.

But what exactly is a carbon market? At a press briefing, IETA president and CEO Henry Derwent acknowledged the concept was a difficult one to explain. "Carbon is an externality, not a commodity. People say, 'What on earth do I need that for? It's not a pork belly.'"

Derwent said investors should look at carbon trading as a form of derivative like a hedge fund. He defended the idea of traders making a profit from carbon trading. "They should be taking a margin for a service. If they do their job well they will provide the world with energy with a lower risk of climate change."

Environmental critics of a cap-and-trade system worry carbon traders, like other derivatives traders, will get carried away and game the system to produce excessive profits for themselves. But the biggest issue as the US contemplates its first national climate bill is the how to allocate the emissions under the cap.

The European Union Emissions Trading System established under the Kyoto protocol gave away emissions allocations to polluting industries in a grandfathering scheme. This depressed the price of carbon and got the market off to a slow start in 2005.

The Lieberman-Warner bill would repeat this strategy in the US by giving away over half of the pollution allowances - worth billions of dollars - to big industries like coal-burning electric utilities. By contrast, both Clinton and Obama advocate auctioning 100 percent of the allowances.

One hundred percent auctioning is a litmus test for much of the environmental community, which sees the revenues as a crucial source of funds to pay for research and development of renewable energy and to support low-income people who will be hurt by higher prices. In fact, a cap-and-trade system with 100 percent auctioning of allowances is functionally not very different from a carbon tax.

At a Carbon Forum plenary session on potential federal greenhouse gas regulation, representatives of some big corporations weighed in on the auctions debate and other issues.

Ralph Moran, West Coast Climate Change director for British Petroleum, said his company supports some amount of auctioning, but it will dramatically increase the cost of doing business. He warned there was no guarantee government would use the revenues from auctions wisely.

Rich Rosenzwieg, Chief Operations Officer of Natsource, a carbon trading firm, continued the theme of mistrust in government. He said we should start small with auctions because "the public won't support giving government billions of dollars in revenue." He said the revenue stream would end up in a "roach motel" where the money goes in but may not come back out to the taxpayer. Rosenzwieg also stressed the need for flexibility and said we should not expect to "solve the problem in ten years."

Katharine Brass, director of General Electric's Ecomagination program, spoke about a looming gap in US electricity production due to the recent cancellation of many new coal-fired generators. That capacity was needed to meet projected demand, she said, and it will take ten years to bring on new coal plants with carbon capture and storage, even if we could start now. But last month, the Bush administration canceled FutureGen, the only pilot program to develop the untested technology.

California Lt. Gov. John Garamendi closed the conference with a stirring address. In an obvious reference to the Bush administration's refusal to allow California to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act, Garamendi detailed all of the ways in which global warming is now impacting and will impact California in the future. While drought and warming are reducing mountain snow pack and drying up the Colorado River, sea level rise will soon push salt water into the Central Delta.

"The end result: the California water system as we know it today - terminated. Doesn't work. We are going to spend billions upon billions of dollars to redesign our water system," Garamendi said.

California is taking action, he said, and state legislation (AB32, The Global Warming Solutions Act) will enable California to establish a carbon cap-and-trade program in the next two or three years. His hope is the California program will drive the coming federal policy: "We are eleven months away from a new regime in Washington and when that happens we want them to follow the California lead and that means we are moving very rapidly forward on a whole set of policy issues."

Garamendi wants California to auction its emissions allowance permits to create a fund to deal with aspects of the problem not covered by markets, like energy research and development and environmental justice.

He also supports bringing in transportation, which accounts for 40 percent of California's greenhouse gas emissions. He said there have been lots of discussions of how to do that, but his view is, "If anyone figures out a way to have a cap-and-trade system that rewards individuals, then we will have a big winner because everyone will want to make an extra buck."

Getting individuals to engage by coming up with the right incentives would be "an awesome system," Garamendi said. "If any of you know of anywhere in the world where such a system is being tried, please let us know here in California."

If Garamendi's enthusiasm is any guide, the new carbon-based economy is coming very soon, at least to California, with the rest of the country following shortly.

Mette Peterson, one of the Carbon Forum organizers, said the conference attendance exceeded expectations with 1,400 participants. She said American businesses were there to learn about the market and get positioned for the future.

It looks like the smart money is gearing up to hedge against climate change.

---

Kelpie Wilson is Truthout's environment editor. Trained as a mechanical engineer, she embarked on a career as a forest protection activist, then returned to engineering as a technical writer for the solar power industry. She is the author of "Primal Tears," an eco-thriller about a hybrid human-bonobo girl. Greg Bear, author of "Darwin's Radio," says: "'Primal Tears' is primal storytelling, thoughtful and passionate. Kelpie Wilson wonderfully expands our definitions of human and family. Read Leslie Thatcher's review of Kelpie Wilson's novel "Primal Tears."

Global Agricultural Expansion

This is an excellent overview from Agri-News out of Ontario (my boyhood stomping grounds) of the rampaging expansion of the global economy and its direct impact on agriculture. The slack has obviously been taken out of the system and the period of intense investment has begun. As you read through this, keep in mind my many postings on terra preta.

All the evidence to date suggests that implementing the terra preta protocol will permit a wind down of the usage of chemical fertilizers by the mere fact that they will be held in the soils and at worst recycled there while not escaping to the sea.

While I have been emphasizing the carbon sequestration aspect, since that is closest to my readers’ hearts, I personably am much more excited by the remarkable fact that the soils created in the Amazon are fertile and productive 500 years after their creation with no addition of modern chemicals. This is in an environment were non terra preta soils are only good for perhaps three years.

Obviously, the prime farm lands throughout China and India is a natural for turning into terra preta, as are all the tropical soils that get enough rainfall to permit the production of high volume crops such as corn, sugar cane and cassava.

As I posted earlier, the areal extent of the Brazilian terra preta culture was similar to that of China and India. Obviously the entirety of the Indonesian Archipelago and large swathes of tropical Africa are wide open to the development of a similar agricultural regime. Astonishingly we are addressing the infertile tropics with this protocol.

Of course, it will be first implemented fully where industrial scale farming is taking place and the financial resources are available. Curiously, terra preta is best practiced first by the subsistence farmer (earthen kiln) and the agro industry farm (industrial kiln). The folks in between will need special equipment built for them.

Interesting times ahead for world farming

By Nelson Zandbergen - AgriNews Staff Writer

MAXVILLE Along with its growing wealth and population, China has picked up a thirst for milk and an insatiable hunger for meat and other agricultural products.

On a globe where grain stocks are already declining because of crop failures in Australia, surging Asian demand for all sorts of foodstuffs will have implications not only for Canadian farmers, including dairy producers but serious consequences for the planet as well.

Ted Bilyea, keynote speaker at the 42nd annual Dairy Day conference here Feb. 14, reprised a sobering message he had also delivered at the Dairy Farmers of Ontario AGM a month earlier. Fittingly, his presentation took its name from the old Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times."

And interesting times are precisely what’s ahead for world agriculture and the environment, according to Bilyea, a retired executive vice-president of Maple Leaf Foods and current co-chair of the Canadian Agri-Food Marketing Council.

With earth’s population expected to hit nine billion by mid-century, "virtually all of that growth is going to occur right there," he said, showing an overhead image of Asia and the Indian subcontinent.

As incomes rise in China and India, large segments of their populations are shifting away from the starchy Third World diets typically ingested by the planet’s three billion people living on $1 a day or less.

"Half the people in China are making $2 a day, and three quarters of the people in India are making $2 a day," said Bilyea, emphasizing the importance of this milestone. "Between $2 and $9 a day is when people eat more animal protein, vegetables and edible oils. And after $10, people buy more processed foods."

He maintained that the planet’s "interdependent" agricultural industry will face even more pressure to "intensify" production to meet the demand of the 53 per cent of the world’s population in China and India whose countries have only 29 per cent of the arable farmland.

East Asia alone, including the Korean peninsula, has 31 per cent of earth’s population but only 14 per cent of the arable land, he noted, while China itself has 100 cities of a million or more people. "And those cities don’t grow any food," he observed.

As its GDP rises, China already imports "a lot" of food to meet demand, he said, adding pointedly that there was a lesson to be taken from the fact that Chinese imports are going up "even despite high tariffs."

To further illustrate growing Chinese prosperity, he noted the recent opening of Starbucks 500th outlet in that country "on their way to 8,000" and remarked that those cups of coffee aren’t retailed at a cheaper price than in the west. In larger urban centres, demand for very high-end consumer products such as those offered by LVMH already exceeds the Canadian market. "We’re relatively down market here compared to Shanghai."

Addressing the audience of 150 milk producers, he commented, "These people want products we’re producing, so it’s going to affect you one way or the other."

Aided by official Chinese government policy promoting milk consumption as well as domestic production Bilyea displayed a billboard image of a Chinese child gazing up at a milk-swigging athlete demand for that commodity is "soaring at the rate of one New Zealand dairy industry per year due to urbanization and rising disposable income," he said.

Intensification

Meat and milk production is ramping up in the Third World (particularly South America) to meet the growing global hunger for those products, and Bilyea painted a worrisome picture of the impact on the planet.

Backed by a slew of charts and statistics, he questioned how already high animal population densities in Asia could go even higher into the future. In China, the related pollution has already led to massive phosphate-fed algae blooms visible from outer space. Drinking water contaminated by agricultural and industrial activity is also responsible for "rapidly rising mortality rates in rural China," he said.

That country also lacks bio-security controls, creating the potential for even greater animal to human disease transfer, according to Bilyea.

Meanwhile, 26 per cent of the "ice free terrestrial surface of the planet" is used for the grazing of livestock. Pasture accounts for 70 per cent of the deforested areas of the Amazon, with the implication that ever more of the South American jungle will disappear with the rising global appetite for beef.

Who will produce the wheat?

Compounding the planetary challenge, China has been switching its available farmland 10 per cent of which is now contaminated by pollution, according to the Chinese government into labour-intensive crops things like fruits and vegetables and out of land-intensive crops like wheat, according to Bilyea. Since 1985, Chinese wheat and coarse grain production has dropped 70 million tonnes, "equivalent to the entire Canadian harvest," he said.

At the same time, worldwide demand for wheat has begun growing at a robust two per cent a year, up from the usual 1.2 per cent, he noted. The situation has created not only record high commodity prices but the real prospect of shortages.

"Consumption has outstripped production seven of the last eight years ... We’re all counting on a bumper crop this year and next. If we don’t get the bumper crop, people are not going to eat, because the product does not exist."

Ethanol contributes to global warming

From a global perspective, demand for grains is "not ethanol-driven," said the speaker, though he did identify ethanol production as an environmental problem.

Referring to an article produced by Nobel Prize-winning chemist Paul Crutzen last year, he declared, "We now know that ethanol produced from crops that require nitrogen fertilizer contributes to, rather than abates, global warming."

He added, "The more corn and ethanol we use, the warmer the environment will get ... so we’re subsidizing global warming."

Reliance on nitrogen fertilizer and pesticides to feed the planet was one of the major points of the presentation, and the speaker suggested mankind must figure out a way to double food production without a corresponding "unsustainable" increase in those inputs.

Reducing pesticide use falls in line with the demands of consumers anyway, he suggested, showing a 2007 statistic in which only 66 per cent of U.S. shoppers were confident in the food purchased in grocery stores.

Regardless of the science, "what that shows you, is that people don’t want to eat residues," he advised the audience.

Concern over safety and the environment can work to the advantage of domestic farmers, according to Bilyea, who pointed to the example set by the European Union, where the long established Green movement and farmers worked together to achieve a ban on Brazilian beef.

"As of Feb. 1, there is no more Brazilian beef going to Europe. The Europeans shut them off," he said. "Consumers are really interested in sustainability."

Searchinger and Fargione on Biofuels

I am posting this review article from World Changing Team by Patrick Mazza because it fully covers current efforts surrounding biofuels. This is an area that I have largely avoided because the strategy of converting food crops into transportation fuels is a case of too little and too late to actually do a lot of good.

My reservations regarding the conversion of cellulose to usable sugars and thus on to ethanol are centered on the sheer difficulty of doing this successfully in an industrial setting anytime soon. However, termites do it somehow, so perhaps it will eventually work.

I am much more encouraged with the rapid progress seen in early work on algae. This appears capable of hugely surpassing any other method in terms of deliverable fuel on a per acre basis and can even be simply deployed in the deserts.

And I would really like to see all that corn stover turned into biochar directly netting 1 to 2 tons into the soil while preserving the nutrient profile and creating terra preta soil.

What I find most difficult with current corn culture practice is the utter necessity to feed both energy and large amounts of nutrients to that particular monkey as compared to almost any other crop. Integrating terra preta promises to resolve this problem by simply converting the waste into a non-degrading soil additive that preserves most of the nutrients in the top soil. This is genius that made the rainforest soils of the Amazon sustainable to this day, while surrounded by untreated soils that could not be farmed for more than three or four years.

Growing Sustainable Biofuels: Common Sense on Biofuels

WorldChanging Team

March 3, 2008 3:53 PM

By Patrick Mazza

Biofuels received a fresh surge of bad publicity with recent publication of two studies in Science that looked at the greenhouse gas releases caused by land use changes connected to biofuels production.

The studies make complex and nuanced statements that were predictably mangled by the press, with headlines easily interpreted as a general condemnation of biofuels. Typical was the New York Times, “Biofuels Deemed a Greenhouse Threat,” The studies were creating new uncertainties even among biofuels supporters and tipping others toward a skeptical position. At very least the studies add to substantial public perception problems facing biofuels.

So it is crucial to line out exactly what the studies say, what they do not say, and what the critics are saying about the studies.

THE SEARCHINGER STUDY

The two studies appeared in the Feb. 7, 2008 of Sciencexpress. The first is by Timothy Searchinger et al, “Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions from Land Use Change.” Here is what it says:

• Prior studies “have failed to count the carbon emissions that occur as farmers worldwide respond to higher prices and convert forest and grassland to new cropland to replace the grain (or cropland) diverted to biofuels.”

• The study models an increase in U.S. corn ethanol of 56 billion liters above projected 2016 production levels. This would divert 12.8 million hectares of U.S. corn production to ethanol, bringing 10.8 million hectares of new cropland into cultivation, primarily in Brazil, China, India and the U.S.

• The study assumes that land converted to farming will release 25 percent of its soil carbon, an average of 351 metric tones per hectare.

• Employing a standard GREET model lifecycle analysis which assigns a 20 percent greenhouse gas reduction to corn ethanol compared to gasoline before indirect land use changes, researchers calculated that it would take 167 years to pay back soil carbon losses. Based on this researchers calculate that corn-ethanol would emit double the greenhouse gases of gasoline over the first 30 years after 2016.

• Cellulosic ethanol has far lower net emissions of greenhouse gases. But if switchgrass feedstock crops replace corn, the displacement effect would still require a 52-year carbon payback period.

• The study assumes average corn yields will stay the same. Researchers constructed a more positive scenario in which corn yields increase 20 percent, soil carbon emissions are only half of their estimates, and corn ethanol before land use changes reduces emissions 40 percent compared to gasoline. That scenario would reduce carbon payback time to 34 years.

It is important to specify that the Searchinger study does not say that current corn ethanol production increases greenhouse gases (GHGs). Its findings reflect land use changes tied to an increase in U.S. corn ethanol production approximately six times that of today.

THE FARGIONE STUDY

The second study, “Land Clearing and Biofuel Carbon Debt,” by Joseph Fargione et al examines direct impacts of land clearing for biofuels crops. In other words, this is not about displacing food production, but about opening entirely new lands for biofuels feedstock growing. It gives carbon payback times for the following land conversions:

• Southeast Asian tropical rainforest to palm biodiesel – 86 years.

• Southeast Asian peatland rainforest to palm biodiesel – 423 years.

• Brazilian tropical rainforest to soy biodiesel – 319 years.

• Brazilian wooded Cerrado to sugarcane ethanol – 17 years.

• Brazilian grassland Cerrado to soy biodiesel – 37 years.

• US Midwest grassland to corn ethanol – 93 years.

• US Midwest conservation reserve lands to corn ethanol – 48 years.

• US Midwest conservation reserves to cellulosic ethanol – 1 year.

• US marginal croplands to cellulosic ethanol – no carbon payback time.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY ABOUT THE STUDIES

Key U.S. biofuels lifecycle researchers weighed in with a series of critiques of Searchinger et al. Michael Wang of Argonne National Laboratory, developer of the GREET model, and Zia Haq of the US Department of Energy Biomass Program, gave these responses:

• Searchinger et al “correctly stated that the GREET model includes GHG emissions from direct land use changes associated with corn ethanol production.”

• Argonne and other organizations are already updating their models to reflect indirect land use conversions.

• The corn ethanol growth figures used by Searchinger correlate to 30 billion gallons a year of production by 2015. However, the new federal renewable fuel standard caps corn ethanol production at 15 billion annual gallons. The Searchinger study “examined a corn production case that is not relevant to U.S. corn ethanol production in the next seven years.”

• It is incorrect to assume no growth in corn yields. Yields have increased 800 percent over the past 100 years, and 1.6 percent annually since 1980. They could well gain two percent annually through 2020 and beyond.

• Searchinger does recognize that corn ethanol production also yields produces Distillers Grain and Solubles (DGS) animal feed byproducts but underestimates its protein value. Thus the study lowballs the contribution of coproducts by at least 23 percent, which drives up their estimates of farmland needed to replace feed corn.

• “There has also been no indication that U.S. corn ethanol production has so far caused indirect land use changes in other countries because U.S. corn exports have been maintained at around two billion bushels a year and because U.S. DGS exports have steadily increased in the past 10 years… It remains to be seen whether and how much direct and indirect land use changes will occur as a result of U.S. corn ethanol production.”

• Wang and Haq cite a 2005 Oak Ridge National Laboratory on cellulosic potentials. “With no conversion for cropland in the United States, the study concludes that more than one billion tons of biomass resources are available each year from forest growth an byproducts, crop residues and perennial energy crops on marginal land. In fact, in the same issue of Sciencexpress as the Searchinger at al study is published, Fargione et al show beneficial GHG results for cellulosic ethanol.”

Another critique comes from David Morris of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance:

• “The vast majority of corn that will be grown in 2008 will be on land that has been in corn production for many years, perhaps for generations.”

• Future corn ethanol plants will achieve 2-4 times greater GHG emissions reductions than the GREET model estimates by converting to renewable energy, while future gasoline from unconventional sources such as tar sands will produce 30-70 percent more GHGs.

• No-till cultivation of corn adds 0.4-0.6 tons of soil carbon annually, which “would offset at least part of the carbon losses from bringing new land into production.”

• Of 14 million new acres of U.S. corn cultivation in 2008, 60 percent came from soybeans, 97 percent of which goes into animal feed. Because of the DGS coproduct, only a fraction of an acre of soybeans are needed to replace an acre of corn.

• Even with 14 million acres of increased U.S. corn production in 2008, “the likely overall conclusion is that as of early 2008, ethanol production continues to reduce greenhouse gases.”

• Most land conversion is due to urban and suburban development, are 2.2 million acres per year.

SYNTHESIS: TOWARD LOW CARBON FUELS

Searchinger et al is a scenario of future ethanol growth rather than an assessment of biofuels use today. The researchers base their scenarios on an assumption virtually all observers believe is unlikely, 30 billion gallons per year of corn ethanol – 15 billion annual gallons is generally regarded as the peak, and that is why it is embodied in the federal fuels standard. The Searchinger study does seem to tend toward more pessimistic conclusions about ethanol efficiency and farm productivity, and is built on modeling assumptions about land use conversion for biofuels rather than observed real world experience. Nonetheless, both Searchinger and Fargione send a strong signal that we must take into account of the whole system by which a new economic sector is created – bioenergy. That has to account for indirect as well as direct land use impacts.

This understanding is already being developed. In fact, while the new studies came as a shock to many, they were no surprise to people who have been working in the sustainable biofuels arena. As a result of advocacy by Natural Resources Defense Council and other green groups, the new federal Renewable Fuels Standard contains greenhouse gas criteria. Corn ethanol must yield a 20 percent reduction. Cellulosic ethanol must reduce emissions 60 percent and other advanced biofuels 50 percent. The latter two represent 21 billion of the annual 36 billion gallon by 2022 standard. The lifecycle studies that measure emissions are mandated by law to include both direct and indirect land use impacts. The Environmental Protection Agency is now conducting those studies, which will be used in rulemaking to adopt the standard. (EPA can reduce goals 10 percent, for instance, corn ethanol to a net 10 percent GHG reduction.)

BOTH STUDIES POINT TO SUSTAINABLE BIOFUELS PATHWAYS

Contrary to the tone of much of the media coverage, neither of the studies counts out the potential environmental value of biofuels. Fargione’s results for cellulosic ethanol points to highly sustainable biofuels production pathways, though other considerations such as wildlife and water use must be taken into account.

“Degraded and abandoned agricultural lands could be used to grow native perennials for biofuel production which could spare the destruction of native ecosystems and reduce GHG emissions,” they write. “Diverse mixtures of native grasslands perennials growing on degraded soils, particularly mixtures containing both warm season grasses and legumes, have yield advantages over monocultures, provide GHG advantages from high rates of carbon storage in degraded soils, and offer wildlife benefits.”

One of the coauthors, David Tilman of the University of Minnesota, was lead author on a previous Science study (“Carbon-Negative Biofuels from Low-Input High-Diversity Grassland Biomass,” Dec. 8, 2006) which documented the environmental and productivity advantages of diverse perennials. They found that the gain in soil carbon as grasses sink deep roots more than makes up for all greenhouse gas releases in the full bioenergy lifecycle.

Fargione et al found other sustainable feedstock options: “Monocultures of perennial grass and woody species monocultures also offer GHG advantages over food-based crops, especially if sufficiently productive on degraded soils, as can slash and thinnings from sustainable forestry, animal and municipal wastes, and corn stover.”

The Searchinger study also points to sustainable options: “This study highlights the value of biofuels from waste products because they can avoid land use change and its emissions. To avoid land use change altogether, biofuels must use carbon that would reenter the atmosphere without doing useful work that needs to be replaced, for example, municipal waste, crop wastes and fall grass harvests from reserve lands. Algae grown in the desert or feedstock produced on lands that generate little carbon today might also keep land us change emissions low, but the ability to produce biofuels feedstocks abundantly on unproductive lands remains questionable.”

That last point does raise a prospective dilemma – Marginal farmland is marginal typically because it sustains lower productivity, and whether such lands can produce enough biomass per acre to be economically feasible is indeed questionable. But if farmers are financially rewarded for growing soil carbon as well as bioenergy feedstocks, biomass production could be lower. This combined growing of bioenergy and biocarbon might well be what it takes to provide incentives for both.

Today U.S. biofuel production centers on the Midwest, where well above 90 percent of all U.S. biofuels feedstocks are grown in corn fields. The Searchinger study focuses on the impacts of corn ethanol. It would be ironic if the new studies were taken as a signal to shut down biofuels development, since biofuels feedstocks in other U.S. regions will primarily come from sustainable feedstocks identified in the Searchinger and Fargione studies – waste streams, cellulose crops and algaes. For areas that have limited corn production capacity, such as the Northwest, these represent the prime biofuels opportunities. If anything, the new studies indicate a need for accelerated development of these new feedstocks and production technologies to take advantage of them.

Part 2 of “Common Sense on Biofuels” will cover the larger contexts of oil, food, carbon and politics that are shaping biofuels growth.

This is part of a series of articles on Growing Sustainable Biofuels by Climate Solutions Research Director Patrick Mazza, . Send comments to patrick@climatesolutions.org.