Environmental Risks and Benefits of Biofuels

Chairman: R.W. Howarth

http://www.eeb.cornell.edu/howarth/SCOPEBiofuels_home.html

The worldwide use of liquid biofuels has grown rapidly during the past 10-15 years, and has accelerated remarkably just since 2005. Production is expected to double by 2015. While most production today occurs in Brazil and the US, increases in production are expected not only in these countries but in Europe, southeast Asia, and Africa. The increased production of just the past 3 years has started to place major strains on the global food system, with global cereal stocks at their lowest levels since the early 1980s. Liquid biofuels (ethanol and biodiesel) are still viewed as “green“ energy sources by some, but criticism of biofuels has also grown remarkably over recent years. Much of the criticism has focused on “first-generation ethanol", that is ethanol produced from corn, and many articles in both the scientific literature and the popular press have reported on a host of environmental problems associated with this technology. Potential issues with ethanol produced from sugarcane, with biodiesel produced from oil palms, soybean, and other crops, and with “second-generation“ ethanol produced from cellulose, have received far less scrutiny and discussion so far. There are nonetheless potentially severe consequences on the environment from these technologies as well.

The charge of the biofuels project is to perform an objective, science-based assessment in order to provide a comprehensive, systematic, and comparative analysis of the environmental benefits and costs of biofuel technologies.

The project is being conducted both at the global (Phase 1) and sub-global (Phase 2) levels, so as to take into account specific physical and societal dimensions in the main regions of the world. The project is evaluating both first and second-generation liquid fuels, including both ethanol and biodiese and is also evaluating gaseous biofuels (methane) and the use of solid biomass for energy (for example through pyrolysis and direct combustion).

An international and interdisciplinary advisory group of distinguished scientists and engineers has been established, while a subset of this group serves as a steering committee for the project. A planning meeting of the advisory group was held in Miami, Florida, in January 2008 to begin planning for a global biofuels rapid assessment workshop as well as to consider Phase 2 activities of the project, including a series of detailed regional assessments.

The first phase of the project was the Rapid Assessment workshop on "Biofuels: Environmental Consequences and Interactions with Changing Land Use" convened in Gummersbach, Germany, on 22-25 September 2008. This workshop aimed to lay out the road map for the larger, more sustained effort that is required given the complexity of the science involved. Thirty-five participants, experts from diverse disciplines as well as representatives of the decision makers and other stakeholders, met together in an interactive manner to produce an authoritative report which reviews the key environmental problems and outlines future perspectives of a more sustainable production and use of biofuels, including cross-cutting aspects of economic and social concerns. The results will provide policy-relevant information to support decision-making by industry, national governments, international institutions and NGOs and will also be summarized in one or more policy briefs.

Initial funding for the biofuels project was provided by the United Nations Foundation, the Biogeochemistry & Biocomplexity Initiative at Cornell University, and an endowment given to Cornell University by David R. Atkinson. The September workshop is also generously supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG).

Last up-dated October 2008