Ag and Forestry Provisions in Waxman/Markey ACES bill

The Waxman/Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) narrowly passed through the House vote on June 26. It would not have passed if the authors had failed to accede to the amendments insisted upon by Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-MN). What are the provisions?

Below is a condensed explanation of the key provisions agreed to by bill sponsor Henry Waxman (D-CA) as reported by the Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI). Aside from securing approximately support of 45 Democrats who would have voted against the bill without the compromise, the ACES bill is much more likely to achieve its stated objective of creating more green jobs, stimulating investment and local economies, and contributing to greenhouse gas emission reductions.

Should these provisions survive Senate deliberations, it also would reverse the polarizing language of the 2007 EISA which severely reduced the availability of qualifying biomass feedstock for bioenergy projects.

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Democrats Strike Deal With Agriculture on Climate Bill

On June 23, Democrats in the House of Representatives announced that they had reached a deal on several key agricultural concerns in the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) (H.R. 2454). The deal, struck with Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee and bill sponsor Henry Waxman (D-CA), included the following key provisions:

1) The agricultural and forestry sectors will be fully exempted from carbon emissions caps.

2) Oversight of the domestic agricultural and forestry offsets program would be moved from the EPA to the USDA. Under these provisions, farmers could sell carbon credits in exchange for practices that reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions or store carbon in the soil and vegetation. Supporters believe that the USDA is in a better position to implement such a program effectively, while critics fear that the USDA will be more lax than the EPA in determining which practices actually reduce carbon emissions. For the time being, the role of the EPA in implementing the offsets program will remain undefined, subject to future guidance from the Obama administration.

3) The renewable fuel standard in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 requires the EPA to conduct a life cycle assessment of greenhouse gas emissions attributed to indirect land use changes around the world caused by the production of biofuels in the United States. Under the agreement, this assessment would be put on hold for the next five years while the National Academy of Sciences conducts a study of the scientific basis and methodologies used in conducting such assessments.

4) The definition of renewable biomass would be expanded to include a much larger portion of available woody biomass on both federal and non-federal lands, and the definition of renewable biomass would be similarly amended for purposes of implementing the renewable fuel standard.

President Obama spoke in favor of the bill on Tuesday, saying it “will spark a clean energy transformation that will reduce our dependence on foreign oil and confront the carbon pollution that threatens our planet.”

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SUSTAINABLE FOREST BIOMASS

Over the past two years, EESI has undertaken a project to assess the state of woody biomass utilization and to develop a suite of policy recommendations intended to promote woody biomass as part of the sustainable forestry paradigm.

After soliciting the opinions of a diverse group of foresters, researchers, NGOs, civic officials, as well as forest industry stakeholders, EESI has put together a well-documented policy paper that is balanced in the areas of environmental, economic, and soclal sustainability.

Although sustainability should be a cornerstone of federal biomass policy, it is important that federal laws and programs do not include highly prescriptive (or proscriptive) rules for where biomass can be harvested, for what purposes, or in what quantities.

It includes a call to evaluate the true comparative costs of various energy paradigm solutions whereby the lifecycle assessment of new approaches are compared not only with each other, but also with a fair assessment of costs and liabilities of the current fossil paradigm.

To view the entire policy paper written by EESI veteran Jesse Caputo, go to Sustainable Forest Biomass: Promoting Renewable Energy and Forest Stewardship.

New Report Challenges Searchinger ILUC Study

Coinciding with the National 25x'25 Summit earlier this month the alliance has just inaugurated their own blog full of news, reports, and commentary relevant to the mission of the organization - to get 25 percent of our energy from renewable resources like wind, solar, and biofuels by the year 2025.

A blog article published yesterday titled "New Report Challenges Searchinger ILUC Study" provides information about the work of two Australian researchers which criticizes the methods and assumptions employed by Tim Searchinger and others in the controversial study titled "Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases through Emissions from Land Use Change", which was published in February, 2008.

Below are my comments to the article.

There are two paradigm shifts at play here.

The obvious one is the international effort to shift the production of liquid fuels from fossil, carbon positive, feedstock to renewable, carbon neutral or negative feedstock. The Catch-22 for renewables is its current unavoidable reliance on its predecessor for energy, transport, and fertilizers. Consequently, many of the factors that impact the carbon footprint of cultivated feedstocks like corn are a result of the very lack of alternatives that renewables are designed to provide. The corn ethanol industry in particular is already at work replacing every carbon input imaginable to improve its balance sheet but it will take time.

The second paradigm shift is the unprecedented global definition of acceptable technologies and markets before they have had a chance to incubate regionally. What innovations would we have sacrificed had we pre-regulated to this extent in the past? Nuclear bombs - which saved millions of lives by changing hot world wars into cold ones? Personal computers and the internet - which democratized worldwide communication and learning to an unparalleled extent?

Anticipating ill effects before feedstocks and products are developed is a risky business that threatens to kill research, development, and deployment - and rapidly shrinking investment. Are we to cede all future RD&D to deep pocketed corporations who have a vested interest in controlling threats to their markets? Can politically motivated legislators objectively thread the delicate needle of market definition and regulation?

The indirect land use conclusions arrived at in Searchinger’s paper are highly speculative and are better at looking backward than forward while new technologies and feedstocks alternatives are being developed. The prominence that such one-side speculation has been given in the public media is troubling.

The idea that low carbon fuel standards include factors based on speculation is prone to gross misuse and manipulation. By hamstringing technology and market development with such standards we virtually insure unfair perpetuation of the status quo - an industry that clearly would not have passed such scrutiny had similar lifecycle analysis models been applied one hundred years ago.

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technorati biomass, agriculture, forestry

Flambeau River BioFuels trailblazes Paper & Pulp Mill Conversions

It is always life-affirming to see the good guys win one. In this case the good guys are the participants of the Flambeau River Biofuels project led by strategic consultant Ben Thorp whose vision, persistence, and professionalism has been an inspiration to all who know him.

It has been a labor of love for Ben who has seen the industry he has devoted so much of his career (at Georgia Pacific) be reduced to a fighting retreat as offshore sourcing, labor prices, and environmental activism has taken a toll on this proud industry. During a time of heightened awareness of the need to buck the oil addiction, it is rarely mentioned that biomass conversion is the nation's largest producer of renewable energy (see chart).

To date the electricity and heat produced by combusting manufacturing residual wood at paper and pulp mills is generally used in plant operations. With projects like the Flambeau River project, the biofuels produced will be sold on the open market (capacity of 6 million gallons per year of Fisher-Tropsch liquids in the form of renewable sulfur-free diesel fuels and waxes).

The refinery is projected to open in 2010.

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U.S. Department of Energy Awards Flambeau River BioFuels a Grant to Construct First-in-Class Facility for Production of Renewable Diesel to be Co-located at Pulp and Paper Mill in Park Falls, WI

PARK FALLS, Wis., July 15 /PRNewswire/ -- Flambeau River BioFuels is pleased to announce that it has received approval of its $30 million grant request from the U.S. Department of Energy to construct and operate a first- in-class biorefinery at an existing pulp and paper mill in Park Falls, Wisconsin. The final award value will be subject to final negotiation with the Department of Energy. When in full operation, the biorefinery will produce at least 6 million gallons of liquid fuels per year in the form of renewable sulfur-free diesel. The biorefinery will not be dependent on any food-based feedstock materials, but rather on by-products or residuals from forest and agricultural sources. The biorefinery will also generate at least 1 trillion BTUs per year of process heat that will be sold to Flambeau River Papers, which will make it the first integrated pulp and paper mill in North America to be fossil fuel free.

"This grant supports Flambeau River BioFuels' goal to be a major contributor in achieving the Federal government's goal of increasing renewable fuels production and reducing our nation's dependence on Mideast oil," said Bob Byrne, President, Flambeau River BioFuels. "With this funding, we will be able to accelerate the retrofitting of this mill from a pure pulp and paper plant to a broader production facility that will produce biofuels within the same facility, thus sharing key infrastructure elements and costs."

The Flambeau River BioFuels biorefinery will employ two commercially proven technologies to produce clean renewable energy and biofuels. It will gasify biomass resources, such as forest residuals and agricultural wastes, into a high-quality synthesis gas, which will then be catalyzed by the well-established Fischer-Tropsch (F-T) process to generate renewable transportation fuels (sulfur-free biodiesel).

"As you can imagine, we are very pleased that our technology approach has been recognized by the Department of Energy as a viable way to produce biofuel from forest residuals -- one of the most abundant renewable resources in the U.S." said William "Butch" Johnson, whose company Johnson Timber is both a project partner and a supplier to the biorefinery. "Since day one, our project has received strong support from Governor Doyle, Chairman Obey and Senator Kohl and we wish to thank them for all their efforts. Once operational, the biorefinery will serve to validate the technology while creating a compelling new model for the pulp and paper industry that can be proliferated throughout the U.S."

"A clean energy future depends on combining Wisconsin ingenuity with our state's resources, and I want to congratulate Flambeau River BioFuels for leading the way," Governor Jim Doyle said. "Their proposed biorefinery shows us all that we can have an energy future that creates jobs, protects our environment and relies less on Mideast oil and more on Midwest know-how."

The Flambeau River BioFuels biorefinery will create permanent, high-skilled operating jobs in the region, long-term logging jobs, and short-term, engineering and construction jobs, thus contributing to the economic stimulus of Park Falls, Wisconsin. The biorefinery is expected to be in operation in 2010.

The project team leading this endeavor is comprised of premiere engineers and scientists with demonstrated successes in implementing new technologies. It will also be supported by the expertise of university and government laboratories.

Flambeau River Biofuels received this grant through their partnerships with: ANL Consultants, Auburn University, Brigham Young University, Citigroup Global Markets, CleanTech Partners, Emerging Fuels Technology, Flambeau River Papers, Johnson Timber, National Renewable Energy Lab, Michigan Technological University, NC State University, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, ThermoChem Recovery International, University of Wisconsin, and the USDA Forest Products Laboratory.

"This grant will help meet our government's goals of creating new jobs, stimulating remote areas, re-positioning traditional industries for a new world era, and, most importantly, producing clean fuels from renewable resources abundantly found in the U.S.," said Bob Byrne. "We are proud to be a part of this important initiative by taking a leading position in the advancement of bioenergy technologies and the development of cellulosic biofuels."

For more information please Bill Johnson at 1-715-558-1630 or Bob Byrne at 1-715-661-0235.

SOURCE Flambeau River BioFuels
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technorati BIOstock, biomass, forestry

Food cost studies compare impact of corn vs. energy price increases

There sure is alot of hang-wringing about biofuels these days. The lastest issue involves concern that the demand for corn will cause food prices to increase - disproportionately affecting the nation's poor and, by extension, the underdeveloped countries in the world.

Good news - the price of corn has dropped! According to recent data, corn prices haven't been this low since the end of 2006 (see chart below courtesy of a recent article at GoG2G Blog).

It is always dangerous to extrapolate trends based on short duration spikes or valleys - particularly in something as variable as corn futures.

But that isn't even what is so interesting about the public outcry. What seems to have gone unnoticed in the press is that the price of gasoline going up has also had an impact on food prices. Compared to the relatively isolated corn price impacts, the energy price increases have a pandemic effect that impacts all food prices for two reasons - most crops are cultivated with petroleum-based fertilizers and all food is transported multiple times between the source and consumer.

BioPact has unearthed two studies that detail findings that support this argument:

John M. Urbanchuk, The Relative Impact of Corn and Energy Prices in the Grocery Aisle [*.pdf], June 14, 2007

The Renewable Fuels Association: Energy Prices, Not Corn, Chief Reason for Rising Food Prices, Study Finds - June 14, 2007.

In short, concern about the plight of underdeveloped nations and the world's poor is a reason to support fuel diversification and decentralization efforts, not hamstring them.

technorati BIOstock, corn, agriculture