Using Less Corn Ethanol Reduces Greenhouse Gas Emissions

(Environmental Working Group) The Environmental Protection Agency’s pending proposal to cut the amount of corn ethanol that must be blended into gasoline in 2014 by 1.39 billion gallons would lower U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by the equivalent of 3 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO₂e) – as much as taking 580,000 cars off the road for a year. It is now clear that the federal corn ethanol mandate has driven up food prices, strained agricultural markets, increased competition for arable land and promoted conversion of uncultivated land to grow crops. In addition, previous estimates have dramatically underestimated corn ethanol’s greenhouse gas emissions by failing to account for changes in land use. In 2012, an Environmental Working Group study found that from 2008 to 2011, more than 8 million acres of grassland and wetlands were converted for corn alone.¹ EWG’s new analysis shows that these land use changes resulted in annual emissions of 85 million to 236 million metric tons (CO₂e) of greenhouse gases. In light of these emissions, many scientists now question the environmental benefit of so-called biofuels produced by converting food crops. A few recent studies still claim that corn ethanol produces fewer emissions than gasoline, but a careful look reveals that their methods don’t properly account for land use change. Studies that do factor in land use change show that using food crops to produce biofuels – once considered a promising climate change mitigation strategy – is worse for the climate than gasoline. READ MORE and MORE (The E-Xchange--Renewable Fuels Association) and MORE (Des Moines Register) and MORE (Renewable Fuels Association) and MORE (Comments on Ethanol’s Broken Promise by the Environmental Working Group (May 2014))
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Excerpt from Renewable Fuels Association: ...Bob Dinneen, president and CEO of the Renewable Fuels Association, responded with the following statement:
“Today’s Environmental Working Group report relies upon overblown and disputed assumptions of land use change, making ethanol from corn appear to be worse than gasoline. That’s simply preposterous, particularly when contrasted with the ever-rising greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from tar sands and fracking. The Department of Energy’s GREET model clearly shows that corn ethanol reduces GHG emissions by 34 percent compared to gasoline, including hypothetical land use change emissions. Additionally, a Life Cycle Associates study found that corn ethanol reduces GHG emissions by 37–40 percent when compared to tight oil from fracking and tar sands.” READ MORE

Excerpt from Des Moines Register: ... Ron Lamberty, senior vice president for the American Coalition for Ethanol, said the study "takes a couple of real things, connects them in an imaginary scenario, and then multiplies over time, to create a big, scary conclusion." Lamberty said while the EWG study found more than 8 million acres of grassland and wetlands were converted for corn, the latest USDA Census of Agriculture showed farm acreage dropped by nearly 8 million acres from 2007 to 2012, the first five years of the Renewable Fuel Standard.
"These people expect us to believe farmers were spending time and money to drain wetlands and plow marginal land while they quit farming productive cropland," said Lamberty. "That's ridiculous."   READ MORE

Excerpt from The E-Xchange:  EWG apparently doesn’t debate the fact that corn ethanol reduces GHG emissions when compared directly to gasoline. Indeed, it’s only when hypothetical, unverifiable indirect emissions are added into the equation that EWG suggests corn ethanol is no better than gasoline. In an attempt to make their case, EWG cherry picks questionable data points from EPA’s flawed and outdated “indirect land use change” analysis from five years ago. And where EPA data doesn’t exist to support their bias, EWG simply makes things up (e.g., there is no support for the claim that 8 million acres of “native” grassland and wetlands were converted to corn production between 2008 and 2011).
EWG’s bogus study is at odds with a growing body of science. Numerous analyses conducted since EPA published the RFS2 final rule in 2010 show that corn ethanol reduces GHG emissions by 30–40% compared to the gasoline it is replacing—even when speculative land use change emissions are included. These peer-reviewed and published studies have been conducted by the likes of Purdue University, Argonne National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, University of Illinois, Michigan State University, the International Food Policy Research Institute, Life Cycle Associates and others. Even the California Air Resources Board (CARB) disagrees with EWG—CARB says more than two-thirds of the GHG reductions achieved under Low Carbon Fuel Standard to date have come from conventional ethanol (despite the fact that CARB’s current framework significantly underestimates corn ethanol’s GHG benefits).
Not only does EWG’s report contradict the state of the art in lifecycle analysis, but it also contradicts data from the real world.
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USDA’s newly published 2012 Agriculture Census, which is based on collection of empirical data and surveys of real farmers (not mysterious and uncertain satellite images), reveals the truth about how land is being used in the U.S. It demonstrates—quite compellingly—that long-term land use trends have not been interrupted in any meaningful way since the emergence of biofuels and passage of the RFS.
• The amount of land in farms declined 0.8% from 922.1 million acres in 2007 to 914.5 million acres in 2012. Land in farms in the 2002 Ag Census was 938.3 million acres.
• Total cropland fell 4.1% from 406.4 million acres in 2007 to 389.7 million acres in 2012. Total cropland in 2012 was a whopping 44.5 million acres lower (10% less) than the 434.2 million acres of cropland in 2002. If the RFS is causing cropland expansion and land use change, as EWG ridiculously claims, why does USDA data continue to show fewer acres dedicated to crops?
• Idle cropland and summer fallow both decreased slightly from 2007 to 2012, indicating that any “new” land coming into cultivation likely came from lands that were previously cropped—not from “pristine prairie” and “native grasslands.” Meanwhile, permanent pasture and rangeland increased 1.6% from 408.8 million acres in 2007 to 415.3 million acres in 2012.
• Contrary to EWG’s doomsday rhetoric that “forests are being chopped down” as a result of the RFS, total woodland increased 2.5% from 75.1 million acres in 2007 to 77 million acres in 2012.
• Another favorite fib some of the environmental NGOs like to tell is that corn ethanol growth has driven expansion of irrigated acres. Once again, the Ag Census shows otherwise. Irrigated acres fell 1.4% from 56.6 million to 55.8 million between 2007 and 2012, according to USDA. (Incidentally, government data also show steadily declining deforestation rates in the Amazon and a shrinking hypoxic “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico since the RFS2 was enacted—so we can toss those canards out too while we’re cleaning house).   READ MORE