With the several global warming diaries up there on the recommended list, and with the oil supply aspects of whatever is going on behind the scenes with this whole Bush/Iraq/Saudi/new-way-forward nexus, I thought it would be worthwhile reporting on an important new study on biofuels. Here's the gist of the study, done by folks at the University of Minnesota, from the news release:
Highly diverse mixtures of native prairie plant species have emerged as a leader in the quest to identify the best source of biomass for producing sustainable, bio-based fuel to replace petroleum.
This is huge. And here's why....
If you've clicked on this diary, you are no doubt aware of the speculative fever driving the ethanol boom, especially in the Midwest, as massive government subsidy meets powerful corporate and commodity group influence, meets farmers' economic hopes and fears, meets get-in-while-the-gettin's-good boosterism. The ethanol/biofuels boom has profound political and ecological consequences for the land, for local economies, for rural communities, for food and energy consumers (i.e., for all of us). Which of course is not to say that there is much critical thinking about whether those consequences, when you add them all up, will be net good or net bad. In boomtimes, hard thinking is not encouraged or rewarded. (Grist has just posted a nice commentary on this).
There is still much debate over the energy conversion ratios of ethanol production, and the accounting methodologies used in making economic judgments on ethanol's long-term viability (especially corn-based ethanol). (Here's one of the latest dispatches from that debate). But beyond that economics+physics debate, conservationists should be concerned about the impact of "ethanolization" on both the quality of life for people and on the quality of the landscape -- the soils, waters, air, plants, animals, ecosystems, human communities. The prospect of still further industrialization of the midwest farm landscape -- of still more intense exploitation of the corn/soybean empire -- of horizon-to-horizon corn, non-stop cropping, abandoned rotations, and neglected soil and water conservation measures -- of gulf hypoxia and overtaxed aquifers and more toxic emissions -- is sobering, to say the least. (I vented some of these concerns in comments on this recent diary). I am equally sobered by the rank political pressure and opportunism that comes with the boomtimes. (Even our friend the junior senator from Illinois has not been immune to the siren call of ADM, though he's hardly the hungriest hog at the trough).
I am obviously not an ethanol booster; I keep a wet blanket handy to toss over the bandwagon. (And I just love a good mixed metaphor!) But neither am I a stodgy naysayer. If (BIG if) we can also muster up some kind of meaningful energy conservation ethic in this decade or two, cellulosic ethanol does hold some promise to free us, to some degree, from our oil addiction -- and not by simply substituting it with a yet deeper corn addiction. It allows us at least to think about how biofuels might be produced through smaller-scale, decentralized, farmer-owned-and-operated, community-supported, land-and-water-and-wildlife-and-climate-friendly ways.
Which brings us to the Minnesota study. Among its basics findings:
- diverse mixtures of perennial native prairie plants outperform corn in terms of net energy per acre;
- native prairie mixtures, being adapted to the actual midwestern prairie terrain and climate, require fewer inputs of fertilizer and pesticides (and are also more drought tolerant);
- prairie mixtures also perfrom better on marginal soils (i.e., soils that should never be planted in intensive monocrops anyway);
- native prairie mixtures and their associated soils also sequester carbon.
This last finding is especially important. Add it all up and greenhouse gas reductions are an estimated 6-16 times greater using mixed prairie grasses for ethanol feedstock than using corn. David Tilman, lead investigator on the study,
calls this "carbon-negative" biofuel. It's just the opposite of biofuels from corn and soybeans, which are "carbon-positive."
There is much more this study suggests, but I'm getting long here. The way science works, this study will no doubt prompt vigorous response. But suffice it to say that these findings have potentially revolutionary consequences. They challenge the paradigm that had been driving the ethanol boom. They allow us to imagine biofuels being produced in ways that do not sacrifice other environmental, land conservation, and social/economic goals. They suggest an alternative economic approach that doesn't plow us into a corner:
"Unless we produce food and biofuel in an efficient manner, they will be directly competing with each other," said David Tilman, regents professor. "We will have high prices for both."
And, thinking wildly for a moment... this study lets us close our eyes and envision a midwest landscape where prairie has returned to at least part of its native territory; where the land is at once productive, beautiful, and ecologically robust; and where we are connected to the land in better, and healthier, ways. I think I can even see some windmills (bird-friendly, of course) rising above the prairie.
Hey, a guy can dream....