Biofuels' Role as a Clean Energy Source

ARLINGTON, VA — October 1, 2009 —The Nature Conservancy’s outlook on biofuels is driven by two considerations. Our analysis indicates that a low-carbon biofuel may be essential to protect Earth from harmful warming. The Conservancy is supporting policies to achieve an 80 percent reduction in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) by 2050 with a goal of holding temperature increases to 2 º C above pre-industrial levels. The transportation sector accounts for 28 percent of U.S. GHGs.

On the other hand, biofuels may challenge our conservation mission. Making a significant reduction in GHGs with biofuels may require that millions of acres of land be dedicated to energy crop production—with associated threats to wildlife habitat, water quality and other environmental values.

Transportation is actually two sectors both dependent on petroleum fuels. About one-half of transportation energy is used to power passenger vehicles—cars and light trucks—traveling less than 40 miles per day and returning home to the same garage every night. In the long-run, the Conservancy believes that the best strategy to reduce GHGs from this sector will be hybrid vehicles powered mostly by electricity from a low-carbon grid.

The other half of transportation energy is consumed in long-haul trips by planes, ships, trucks and trains. This sector will never be battery-powered; it requires a liquid fuel with very low carbon emissions. The biofuel of the future will be a drop-in substitute for jet fuel or diesel with equivalent power density made from the cellulose in grasses, woody crops or wastes or from oil produced by algae.

But that is all in the future. Today, Americans are using more than 9 billion gallons of ethanol made mostly from corn. Our science indicates that corn ethanol has only modest benefit from a climate change perspective—and only if one ignores the carbon emissions from land use change. It will need to be replaced over the long-run with lower-carbon power. But to be fair, the tax incentives and production mandates in government policy that are driving corn ethanol use today were enacted primarily to reduce oil imports and increase farm income. Ethanol has contributed to achieving those goals.

The Conservancy has been working with a coalition of organizations known as the Council on Sustainable Biomass Production (www.csbp.org) to develop a sustainability roadmap for the new biofuels industry. This coalition includes growers, oil companies, leading firms in biotechnology, future biofuel refiners, academics and other environmental organizations. Participation in this effort has taught us that the path to sustainable biofuels has several elements:

• Improved vehicle efficiency to reduce the fuel consumed;
• Increased use of wastes, agricultural residues, and cover crops that do not require additional land;
• Development of high-yield cellulosic crops or algae oils to decrease production costs and land use requirements;
• Intensification of other land uses, especially grazing, to reduce competition for land with food crops and natural systems;
• Protection for high conservation value areas that might otherwise be converted to energy crop production;
• Sustainable practices employed by growers in crop cultivation and harvest to protect biodiversity, water quality and quantity, soil health and the recreational values of our lands.

Putting some of these elements in place will require action by Congress and state governments to assure that the biomass we produce and consume as fuel to protect our climate will be grown and harvested in ways that minimize adverse impacts on our wildlife, lands and waters.

The Nature Conservancy is a leading conservation organization working around the world to protect ecologically important lands and waters for nature and people. The Conservancy and its more than 1 million members have protected nearly 120 million acres worldwide. Visit The Nature Conservancy on the Web at www.nature.org.