Domestic Fuel

The Holly Gibbs study is riddled with false assumptions that have not been scientifically proven. Biofuels are not the primary cause of deforestation:

In Indonesia, the number one cause of deforestation is the ravenous lumbering of forests for paper pulp and hardwoods, which are shipped all over the world. Then the use of the land changes, to cattle grazing, cassava fields, or palm plantations. 70 percent of all palm oil goes to food. Does the study assign deforestation to food production? No. Does the study blame deforestation on paper pulp and hardwood lumber production? No.

In Brazil, again the value of the lumber is the origin of deforestation, not biofuels. Amazon deforestation occurs when rainforest is illegally cut by unscrupulous fly by night lumber companies. They are in and out. They leave the smaller trees behind and do not burn the waste. Next, cattle grazers move in and squat on the land. They are the ones who burn what’s left, the smaller trees, the lumbering waste, and the underbrush. They grow grass and graze cattle on the land, for years, until the grass and the soil is depleted. Then the soybean farmers move in, and their crops restore nitrogen to the soil. By the way, 75 percent of a soy crop is high protein feed that produces food. The oil extracted from the soybeans is a smaller component that goes to food or fuel.

Did the study assign deforestation to the production of lumber, cattle meat, and the feed and food portion of the soybean crop? No. Deforestation is falsely blamed on the oil component of the soy crop, produced years after the actual deforestation occurred.

Here in the U.S. and around the world, we deforest land to produce lumber, which creates urban sprawl. We deforest land to build furniture and many other products. We deforest land to clear the way for roads, power lines, railroads, you name it. What we need is a study that evaluates all causes of deforestation and puts them in the proper context. The Gibbs study falsely implies that biofuel is the culprit.

Holly Gibbs uses 20 years worth of irrelevant data, from 1980 to 2000, long before biofuels had any impact. During this time frame, rainforests were being cut for lumber, paper pulp, cattle grazing, and agricultural crops, not biofuels.

What kind of biofuel is Holly Gibbs talking about anyway? Corn ethanol? Grain sorghum ethanol. Sweet sorghum ethanol? Cassava ethanol? Algae ethanol? Cellulosic ethanol made from what? From waste? What kind of waste? From Biomass? What kind of biomass? Biodiesel, made from what? Soybeans, corn, winter canola, cambre, rapeseed, algae, palm, jatropha? Is it a winter crop, doubling up with corn or soybeans? Biogas from manure? From Biomass? From food waste? They all have different effects on the environment. They all have different byproducts. They all have different energy returns. They’re grown in different climates under different conditions. Painting all biofuels with the same brushstroke is totally un-scientific and not credible.

Biofuel critics typically drag ethanol into the argument against biodiesel. And they drag biodiesel into the argument against ethanol. Like the Gibb’s study, many other biofuel critics refer to biofuels as one big entity that they can slash and burn, regardless of what they’re derived from or how they’re produced. Claiming that all biofuels are causing deforestation is totally false. Not all biofuels are the same. Ethanol, biodiesel, and biogas are three different animals.

Another thing biofuel critics falsify is that food crops are going totally to fuel, and that food acreage is being diverted to fuel acreage. In the U.S., Corn ethanol is also feed and food, not just fuel. Only the starch in feed corn goes to ethanol, which cattle and dairy cows have difficulty digesting. The byproduct of corn ethanol, high protein distillers grains is a better feed product than whole corn. It is what you would call a value-added product. This corn ethanol byproduct supplements a large livestock, dairy, poultry, and fish farming industry. For example, feeding distillers grains to dairy cows produces 10 pounds more milk per cow per week, and feeding it to livestock produces 10 to 14 percent more meat. Last time I checked this was FOOD. Corn oil is also extracted from distillers grains. That can go to human consumption or biodiesel. Agricultural waste such as corn cobs and stover are being used for cellulosic ethanol. Are these anti-biofuel studies accurately taking into account the value of all the byproducts? No.

In the U.S., the corn ethanol industry has created 320,000 new jobs. Billions have been invested constructing refineries and an infrastructure to handle it. This has had a huge economic stimulus and helped the economy. Likewise for biodiesel, but on a smaller scale. Policies that favor ethanol, biodiesel, and biogas will expand the economy and help us get out of the crisis were in. We must replace foreign oil.