From the University of Leicester department of inconvenient truths:
New study suggests EU biofuels are as carbon intensive as petrol
University of Leicester research into greenhouse gas emissions from oil palm plantations provides robust measures now being used to inform international policies on greenhouse gas emissions
A new study on greenhouse gas emissions from oil palm plantations has calculated a more than 50% increase in levels of CO2 emissions than previously thought – and warned that the demand for ‘green’ biofuels could be costing the earth.
The study from the University of Leicester was conducted for the International Council on Clean Transportation, an international think tank that wished to assess the greenhouse gas emissions associated with biodiesel production. Biodiesel mandates can increase palm oil demand directly (the European Biodiesel Board recently reported big increases in biodiesel imported from Indonesia) and also indirectly, because palm oil is the world’s most important source of vegetable oil and will replace oil from rapeseed or soy in food if they are instead used to make biodiesel.
The University of Leicester researchers carried out the first comprehensive literature review of the scale of greenhouse gas emissions from oil palm plantations on tropical peatland in Southeast Asia. In contrast to previous work, this study also provides an assessment of the scientific methods used to derive emissions estimates.
They discovered that many previous studies were based on limited data without appropriate recognition of uncertainties and that these studies have been used to formulate current biofuel policies.
The Leicester team established that the scale of greenhouse gas emissions from oil palm plantations on peat is significantly higher than previously assumed. They concluded that a value of 86 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) per hectare per year (annualised over 50 years) is the most robust currently available estimate; this compares with previous estimates of around 50 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) per hectare per year. CO2 emissions increase further if you are interested specifically in the short term greenhouse gas implications of palm oil production – for instance under the EU Renewable Energy Directive which assesses emissions over 20 years, the corresponding emissions rate would be 106 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) per hectare per year.
The findings have been published as an International White Paper from the ICCT.
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  IMAGE:Oil palm plantations on peat: note the leaning trunks owing to low load-bearing capacity of peat soils.Click here for more information. |
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Ross Morrison, of the University of Leicester Department of Geography, said: “Although the climate change impacts of palm oil production on tropical peatland are becoming more widely recognised, this research shows that estimates of emissions have been drawn from a very limited number of scientific studies, most of which have underestimated the actual scale of emissions from oil palm. These results show that biofuels causing any significant expansion of palm on tropical peat will actually increase emissions relative to petroleum fuels. When produced in this way, biofuels do not represent a sustainable fuel source”.
Dr Sue Page, Reader in Physical Geography at the University of Leicester, added: “Tropical peatlands in Southeast Asia are a globally important store of soil carbon – exceeding the amount stored in tropical forest vegetation. They are under enormous pressure from plantation development. Projections indicate an increase in oil palm plantations on peat to a total area of 2.5Mha by the year 2020 in western Indonesia alone –an area equivalent in size to the land area of the United Kingdom.”
Growth in palm oil production has been a key component of meeting growing global demand for biodiesel over recent decades. This growth has been accompanied by mounting concern over the impact of the oil palm business on tropical forests and carbon dense peat swamp forests in particular. Tropical peatland is one of Earth’s largest and most efficient carbon sinks. Development of tropical peatland for agriculture and plantations removes the carbon sink capacity of the peatland system with large carbon losses arising particularly from enhanced peat degradation and the loss of any future carbon sequestration by the native peat swamp forest vegetation.
Although there have been a number of assessments on greenhouse gas emissions from palm oil production systems, estimates of greenhouse gas emissions from land use have all been based on the results of a limited number of scientific studies. A general consensus has emerged that emissions from peat degradation have not yet been adequately accounted for.
The results of the Leicester study are important because an increase in the greenhouse gas emissions associated with biodiesel from palm oil, even if expansion on peat only occurs indirectly, will negate any savings relative to the use of diesel derived from fossil fuel.
If these improved estimates are applied to recent International Food Policy Research Institute modelling of the European biofuel market , they imply that on average biofuels in Europe will be as carbon intensive as petrol , with all biodiesel from food crops worse than fossil diesel and the biggest impact being a 60% increase in the land use emissions resulting from palm oil biodiesel. Bioethanol or biodiesel from waste cooking oil, on the other hand, could still offer carbon savings.
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 IMAGE:Subsidence pole inserted in peatland in Johor, peninsular Malaysia. The pole was inserted beside an oil palm plantation in 1978 and at the time of this photograph (2007), 2.3 m…Click here for more information. |
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This outcome has important implications for European Union policies on climate and renewable energy sources.
Dr Sue Page said: “It is important that the full greenhouse gas emissions ‘cost’ of biofuel production is made clear to the consumer, who may otherwise be mislead into thinking that all biofuels have a positive environmental impact. In addition to the high greenhouse gas emissions associated with oil palm plantations on tropical peatlands, these agro-systems have also been implicated in loss of primary rainforest and associated biodiversity, including rare and endangered species such as the orang-utan and Sumatran tiger.
“We are very excited by the outcomes of our research – our study has already been accepted and used by several scientists, NGOs, economists and policy advisors in Europe and the USA to better represent the scale of greenhouse gas emissions from palm oil biodiesel production and consumption.
“The findings of this research will be used by organisations such as the US Environmental Protection Agency, European Commission and California Air Resources Board to more fully account for greenhouse gas emissions and their uncertainties from biofuel produced from palm oil. This is essential in identifying the least environmentally damaging biofuel production pathways, and the formulation of national and international biofuel and transportation policies.”
Dr Chris Malins of the ICCT said, “Peat degradation under oil palm is a major source of emissions from biodiesel production. Recognising that emissions are larger than previously thought will help regulators such as the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), European Commission (EC) and California Air Resources Board (CARB) identify which biofuel pathways are likely to lead to sustainable greenhouse gas emissions reductions”.
The research was funded by the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), an international think-tank made up of representatives from the world’s leading vehicle manufacturing nations. The research was commissioned by Dr Chris Mallins of the ICCT and led by Dr Susan Page and Ross Morrison, both of the Department of Geography, University of Leicester. Other contributors to the work were Professor Jack Rieley of the University of Nottingham and chair of the scientific advisory board of the International Peat Society (IPS), Dr Aljosja Hooijer of Deltares in the Netherlands, and Dr Jyrki Jauhiainen of the University of Helsinki. The research was conducted over a period of three months during spring of this year and has recently been published as an International White Paper by the ICCT.
And not a peep out of the MSM.
Those guys are a hazard I swear.
Berkeley said that there is a negative return on energy with respect to biofuel production.
http://www.7gen.com/blog-entry/energy-return-investment-eroi-study-biofuels/438
A small nit to pick with Leicester Uni – the UK is closer to 25 Million hectares than 2 point five Million. If you fancy a laugh and the link works, you’ll find that even the UK’s very own Dept of Ag (DEFRA) don’t know how much land there is here.
http://www.fwi.co.uk/Articles/30/03/2009/114908/DEFRA-doesn39t-know-area-of-England39s-farmland.htm
I had a bit of thought the other day (scareeeee) and it ‘fits’ in with this article…
Basically, is the measured increase in atmospheric CO2 level more to do with the advent of tractors and industrial scale (deep) ploughing than the actual burning of fossil fuel? A twenty fold increase in fossil fuel use doesn’t really stack up against CO2 going up by ~50% since 1900 but; does it correlate better to the ever increasing amount of cultivated land being used/needed/required to feed all the people. Just look at the tons per Ha these folks are quoting.
Is it the farmers what did it and not the SUV drivers?
Just a thought.
Interesting but it looks like their results are based on estimations of emmisions from peat, but Lewis Page over at The Register has this article today showing that the emmisions from peat have been vastly exaggerated and won’t result in runaway feedback:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/04/peat_bogs_not_a_problem_in_global_warming/
I wonder what effect this research has on this new model?
Chuck Nolan says:
November 4, 2011 at 10:20 am
“DirkH says:
November 4, 2011 at 8:20 am
………… Solar thermal energy or wind appear to have the highest EROI, and thus the greatest promise in the long term for future fuels.
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Yeah but that’s like talking about overdrive on a jackass. It’s a good idea but, it just doesn’t work.”
I didn’t say that; it was David L. Hagen; with whom I only agree insofar as future energy sources must have an EROEI > 3 to be viable (I prefer that to “sustainable”).
David L. Hagen,
Solar and wind may have the highest EROI, but they suffer from the greatest intermittence problems. Solar can only be collected when the sun is out, so cloudy days or night time doesn’t work well. For wind, the wind has to be in the right speed range (not too high or too low) and from the right general direction. Energy “created” by these methods cannot currently be stored in any efficient way but must be transmitted to the end user immediately. As such, on days when solar or wind do quite well, any “over-production” is simply wasted, whereas on days not favorable to solar or wind production, the backup generators using gas or coal must provide the power. If you don’t factor in the backup generators, you do not get the correct answer for the ACTUAL EROI of solar and wind.
I have seen studies from Great Britain that show that on the coldest days where people need energy the most, the wind farms are operating at less than 5% of capacity, which means on days like that their actual EROI is absolutely abysmal.
To those of you talking about “those nice clean tar sands”:
1. If they output less CO2 than biofuels, then by “environmentalist” standards they can be said to be “cleaner”.
2. After we remove all of the oil from the tar sands, all that will be left will be sand, and that is nice and clean, so we are doing the earth a favor by cleaning out all of that useable (but goopy) oil from Canada’s sandbox.
Kum Dollison says:
November 4, 2011 at 10:09 am
“Yep, “Food” is in such short supply that we pay farmers NOT to plant 30,000,000 Acres every year.
And, that’s just in the U.S.”
I knew about the Ethanol subsidies in the US but nothing about subsidies for fallow land. Is there such a thing in the US?
Here in Germany, there were fallow acres 10 years ago, paid for by EU subsidies, but it looks like the Biodiesel subsidies make it now more profitable to grow rape on them; and the high prices for wheat also help to convince the farmers to actually use their land.
And yes, Kum, food is in short supply in regions of the world that can’t pay the current high prices to replace failing harvests by imports; whitness Somalia. Also, before the Arab Spring revolts in Egypt, food prices shot up. Wheat had been subsidized by the Moubarakh regime, but nonsubsidized foodstuffs like tomatoes went up by 600% in price in local currency.
Maybe, by continuing the Ethanol programme, the US intentionally drives up worldwide food prices to destabilize certain regimes.
I’m sure it’s not made from the output of the tar sands. I didn’t say it wasn’t made using the output of the tar sands. I don’t deliberately consume petroleum or petroleum by-products. Do you?
Do you understand crop land that should be growing food is instead used to produce biofuels? Do you understand how this has caused a world-wide increase in food prices, contributing to hunger and starvation?
And as the the tarsands, we have plenty of other oil reserves we could be using, but aren’t.
erfiebob says:
November 4, 2011 at 8:56 am
“…unintended consequences…”
Nick Shaw says:
November 4, 2011 at 9:04 am
“Just another example of unintended consequences (or were they?)”
150+ years of studying what happens when you set some idiotic market stimulus…
80 years of seeing what happens in planned economies….
50 years of coming to grips with the effects of eco-propaganda…
They were intended consequences.
When someone talks to me about being green, my answer has been for some time: “Sorry, I prefer my colonialism in the old 19th-century style – Cecil Rhodes & the Maxim gun – they at least put up some infrastructure and educated a middle class.”
Rather than focusing on the carbon footprint of biofuels, how about UoL focus on the turning-over of productive agricultural land to growing food to burn while people in eastern Africa are starving to death?
“…because palm oil is the world’s most important source of vegetable oil and will replace oil from rapeseed or soy in food if they are instead used to make biodiesel…”
Let’s try something – let people use the palm oil FIRST – and set up bio-oil recycling centers. You’ll still get the oil (it may be dirtier), but people have collected and used old deep-fry oil in cars for awhile now.
To me, allowing “virgin” oil to used for biodiesel is a waste.
Bloke down the pub says:
November 4, 2011 at 9:57 am
Jeff in Calgary says:
November 4, 2011 at 9:22 am
Latitude:
I think the term genocide is a little strong here. Kind of falls in to Godwin’s law.
Sorry to say Jeff, but I think Latitude is spot on the mark.
I agree. Statistics are that a child dies from hunger every 6 seconds. Now think about that as you pump 10% ethanol into your tank. All the land that could have been crop land and all the crops that could have been food – all so that people can make money from biofuels which do not even meet their basic purpose of reducing CO2 emissions.
So in the time you have read this another child has died of hunger.
The self-aggrandizing alarmist climate ‘scientists’ have a lot to answer for.
Biodiesel has negative impacts on operations and emissions of diesel engines. High levels of biodiesel (B20) can cause sludge and deposits in the fuel and lubricant systems of modern engines. Plus, biodiesel causes increased NOx emissions which is well documented by CARB and other government organizations. Hydroprocessing fats and oils into hydrocarbon fuels produces a much better fuel, but at the expense of needing H2 for removal of oxygen and satruating double bonds in fats and oils. This fuel has lower emissions than conventional diesel and is biodegradable and non-toxic. But it is expensive as there is more equipment needed to do this processing than is needed to produce FAME (Fatty Acid Methyl Ester) biodiesel fuel.
A better way to make fuel is to grow as much biomass as possible and convert it to fuels using gasification/F-T conversion. This produces drop in hydrocarbon fuels with much lower GHG emissions than from all other biomass resources. Cellulosic ethanol is a dead issue as the cost of these plants is high and the conversion efficiency of biomass into ethanol is low on an energy basis. Plus gasoline engines do not have the thermal efficiency of diesel engines (more MPG for diesels).
P Walker says:
November 4, 2011 at 10:15 am
I would love to see a study on the number of times that attempts to mitigate perceived environmental problems have resulted in producing very real environmental disasters .
“”
Every time. I looked. I cannot name a single success.
I am beginning to think it is planned.
Crispin in Waterloo says:
November 4, 2011 at 10:40 am
Berkeley said that there is a negative return on energy with respect to biofuel production.
http://www.7gen.com/blog-entry/energy-return-investment-eroi-study-biofuels/438
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Charles S. Opalek, PE looked at wind power and found the same thing. http://www.windpowerfraud.com/
So far ,it is all about sucking money out of tax payers to pay for bogus “clean Energy”
Thorium Nuclear looks like the best place to put our tax money: http://pubs.acs.org/cen/science/87/8746sci2.html
February 16, 2011
China’s Thorium Reactor and Japan’s targets 10 MW thorium miniFuji for 2016
China has committed itself to establishing an entirely new nuclear energy program using thorium as a fuel, within 20 years. http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/02/chinas-thorium-reactor-and-japans.html
Seems even the Guardian (UK) is on board! http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2011/sep/09/thorium-weinberg-foundation
Mininuclear could be used for transportation too: “Mr. Fukushima stated that IThEMS is negotiating with Korean Shipbuilders over the potential sale of Mini-Fujis for ship propulsion systems.” http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/10/minifuji-thorium-reactor-group-talks-to.html
I wonder just how many of those plantations are owned by international corporations?
So I took a quick look:
http://www.cspinet.org/palm/PalmOilReport.pdf (Source is not very good)
Seems we are back to the World Bank AGAIN. see SAPs:http://www.whirledbank.org/development/sap.html and http://www.whirledbank.org/development/debt.html
Another case of Cui Bono – answer the Banks and Ag Cartel.
Wind is perhaps the worse alternative power source available. Wind takes a lot of land, requires new transmission lines, kills birds by the thousands and the turbines emit sub-sonic sounds and vibrations that make living nearby unbearable for many people.
The worst thing about wind power is wind is intermittent. Wind power requires a nearly 100% redundancy in order to ensure a steady supply of power. Instead wasting money on duplication, why not just build the conventional power plants instead? The cost per-megawatt hour for wind is very high. The same money could be spent on a modern, highly-efficient, clean-burning natural gas plant instead.
Kum Dollison says:
November 4, 2011 at 10:09 am
Yep, “Food” is in such short supply that we pay farmers NOT to plant 30,000,000 Acres every year.
And, that’s just in the U.S.
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Your 30 million acres number is a little off.
For 2007 it’s 38,547,450 acres. To put this number in perspective, it’s 1.7% of the total US landmass and about 4% of total farmland.
Oh, it’s also “Farmland in conservation or wetlands reserve programs”. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_Reserve_Program
For those not disposed to follow the link. The natural “resources conservation programs help people reduce soil erosion, enhance water supplies with groundwater recharge, improve water quality, increase wildlife habitat, and reduce damages caused by floods and other natural disasters. The CRP encourages farmers to convert highly erodible cropland or other environmentally sensitive acreage to vegetative cover, such as cultivated or native bunchgrasses and grasslands, wildlife and pollinators food and shelter plantings, windbreak and shade trees, filter and buffer strips, grassed waterways, and riparian buffers.”
So planting in that 38 million acres could increase soil erosion, reduce groundwater levels and decrease wildlife habitat. Now we’re back to the unintended consequences. But hey, we’d be producing food,
see! – if the flipping greenies would stick to the really important stuff – and left the AGW meme alone – the world would be a better place.
I thought the “green agenda” was to preserve the “natural” environment.
Clearing tropical rainforest to assist into redirecting food into the fuel supply stream just seems so wrong on so many fronts.
What happened to the radicals of the past – haven’t they become the the establishment ? And, aren’t they just as manipulative and dishonest as the “establishment” they railed against ?
I wonder just how many of those plantations are owned by international corporations?
The answer is none.
Foreigners and foreign companies are not allowed to own land in Malaysia or Indonesia.
I believe the largest owner of palm oil plantations in Johor is the Sultan (of Johor) who is extraordinarily rich.
Try and re-read the article while keeping in mind:
a) CO2 emission is not problematic, but beneficial;
b) biofuels are a net energy loser, as it takes more to generate them than they return;
The perversity and stupidity are enough to moggle the bind.
16 to 30 times as much CO2 is released than saved in Palm oil production in Indonesia:
http://www.helsinki.fi/vitri/research/Educational_Projects/forrsa/RE_2_Course%20and%20workshop%20proceedings/lecture/8jan/06co2.pdf
Greenies get to wreck environments and economies simultaneously, all in the name of “saving the planet”. Dr. Evil himself couldn’t come up with a more dastardly plan.