Corn and soybeans are not grown for biofuels. They are grown as commodity grains. If the ethanol industry wanted to maximize yield they would grow sugar beets behind their industrial plants. Replace mechanized commodity grains with manual labor under third-world conditions (sorry, but true and oh the irony) and just see the food crisis that ensues.

Soybeans are not grown because corn protein co-products (gluten feed and meal, ddgs and eventually state-of-the-art dry-fractionation corn protein isolate) replace those 45 corn bushel equivalent soybean acres with 160 corn bushels per acres. The stupidity of these Purdue “scientists” is astounding.

No doubt some hippy will claim “whaaaah but you gots to rotate corn wit teh soybeans waaaa.” We don’t – even 140 continuous corn bpa still beats 45 cbepa in this Universe.

Oh yeah, and corn doesn’t actually replace average yielding soybean acres; rather they replace the marginal 10-20 bushel soybean acres.

I could go on…

In 2009, we harvested the same amount of corn as 2007 – but from 7 million FEWER acres – because the yield per acre increased 10%. Corn ethanol can only be responsible for indirect land use change if the acreage keeps expanding. Like Searchinger, Hertel falsely claims that the corn crop used for ethanol will continue to consume additional lands. But that’s Not happening….

The return on the 2009 corn crop shoots holes in Hertel’s conclusions. U.S. Corn acreage dropped in 2008 and dropped again in 2009, while the soy crop expanded dramatically. This is just the opposite of what Searchinger and Hertel falsely project. They both make the false conjecture that corn acreage will keep expanding, displacing soy acreage and other crops, such that foreign lands would be deforested, in order to grow the crops that were displaced. This is only happening in their phony computer models – Not in the real world. Corn ethanol is not displacing any other crops in the U.S. or anywhere else in the world. And that is a cold, hard fact. We also have a huge surplus of arable land and abandoned farm land available….

Many other countries have expanding biofuels programs of their own. Brazil has a plan to expand sugarcane and soy acreage for ethanol and biodiesel respectively, causing their own deforestation. A new German study concludes that Brazil is causing its own land use change, not American corn ethanol. The study, conducted at the University of Kassel, by David M. Lapola, is published in “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences”. Lapola’s academic team noted – That Brazil has set 2020 goals for expanding cane-based ethanol and soy biodiesel production of their own. And this is a driving force causing indirect land use change and deforestation in Brazil: “Sugarcane ethanol and soybean biodiesel would be responsible for 41% and 59% of this indirect deforestation, respectively.” Prior to this, logging, cattle grazing, and subsistence farming have been the main causes of Brazilian deforestation, with soy farming less than a 16% impact. And 80% of that is used for livestock feed to produce food. Let’s see if Hertel can explain why Brazil’s expanding biofuel crops aren’t causing indirect land use change in the U.S. and other countries….

Hertel omits two other corn ethanol byproducts in his analysis – the corn cobs and corn stover biomass, integrated into corn ethanol refineries and made into additional ethanol – From the same acre of corn that was used to produce fuel from the grain. Hertel also omits GreenShift corn oil extraction, which is sweeping the Industry. Roughly 10 corn ethanol refineries already have it. This process extracts crude corn oil from distillers grains and increases the fuel yield by 7%. This is a new co-product made into biodiesel fuel. Another new process is fractionation and micro-fractionation, that increases ethanol production 3.5 to 5%. These upgrades also invalidate Hertel’s conclusions….

The objective of the study was to prop-up the controversial and illegal California ARB rules, erroneously based on the unproven indirect land use change theory. Using fancy computer modeling does Not prove that a land theory is real. If you put false assumptions and inaccurate information into a software program, you’ll get false conclusions out, no matter how good the modeling is.

Only 1/3 of corn goes to corn ethanol anyway. That leaves 2/3 of the corn, of which the starch often isn’t needed.

I hope you are kidding that “I can’t believe grown-ups actually support corn ethanol.” Some of the most immature comments I have read are from petroleum supporters and environmental activists, when they spread false myths against corn ethanol.

Corn and corn ethanol are subsidized to compete with other subsidized products and other nations that subsidize their products. I’m fine with removing the subsidies, if you can convince those industries and governments to drop their subsidies. Until then it’s a moot point.

as for ILUC. it is a theory that can apply in limited places like Indonesia where there is a linkage to forest destruction and subsequent planting of west africa palm, which does require rainforest environment. however, even there they have a backlog of 7 million hectares of cut forest where they promised to plant palm and did not. The reality is that forests are cleared for tropical hardwoods and charcoal and only used as pasture for a few years before the soil gives out. it is not good soil for biofuel crops with the exception of native palms that have adapted to the soil.

If you want to stop forest destruction, you need to put carbon duties on tropical hardwoods and steel made from uncertified vegetable charcoal from forests. but if you really want to stop forest destruction, Brazil is willing to sell carbon credits and the entire Amazon legally committed to no more cutting of wood would cost about $10 a ton and a $1 trillion to produce more than 350 million tons of avoided emissions. that is more than any of the goals being reached in real life by any countries globally prior to 2020 but if you want the brazilians to agree you have to provide alternative employment to logging and charcoal. the best answer is to plant native trees just outside the Amazon that will provide the feedstock needed for biofuels while specifically excluding any biofuel being produced in areas cut going forward.

it is difficult to believe in ILUC when it is used as a tool to keep biofuels out of foreign markets when no efforts are made in parallel to preserve the rainforests with carbon credits.

if you are interested in more information send an email or go to our web sites
billwason@sustainablebiobrazil.org
http://www.sustainablebiobrazil.org
http://www.biopurefuels.com

There you have it. Corn ethanol is subsidized food burning!!

I can’t believe grown-ups actually support corn ethanol.

Tom Darlington–I don’t see your name in the article; maybe it was edited out or maybe you were referring to another article? Tom, if you’re reporting the factual truths about corn ethanol and land use change, then thank you, because the only facts that are proven by actual science are very positive for corn ethanol. If you are publishing something negative it is simply not a fact and shame on you. There’s too much guesswork being published about land use change, being promoted as real science. Scientists should get some pride and publish documented, repeatable, empirical science. No more of these foo-foo computer models where input variables are deceptively set at extremes to achieve the desired output negative to corn ethanol. Many land use change scientists are giving science a very bad name. And for anyone that believes those quacks, I’ve got some ocean-front property in Wyoming that I would like to sell to you!

The manufactured corn based food industry is making the consuming populations overly FAT. Do we ask that the health impacts of such results be placed in the accounting?

Much better that the extra corn that is being produced be converted to fuel. How about the indirect benefit of becoming energy independent? Or the ability to change our National Security interests in the middle east. I favor American interests over Big Oil interests. Were in a period of transition.

I can’t believe she doesn’t know the difference between “then” and “than”. Seeing that, I couldn’t read the rest of her report.

I think the authors cited contributions I may have made during the submission of these comments, on behalf of RFA. I am honored that they acknowledged these contributions. That does not mean that I participated in this study, and it does not mean that I agree with its conclusions. In fact, I have a number of remaining comments on this study, which I don’t have space to enumerate here.

I would appreciate it if you would clarify this position in your article.

Tom Darlington

What I don’t understand is how Growth Energy did not know of these connections to Big Oil, CARB, Searchinger, et al. Growth needs to amend their original rebuttal of this tainted research.

Brazil planted 58 Million Acres in Soybeans in 2003,

and 53 Million Acres in 2008.

One reason for this, probably, is the amount of Soy Meal that’s replaced when DDGS are fed.

Oh, and with 150 Million Acres of land Lying Fallow in the Cerrado, why would anyone cut down trees if all they wanted to do was plant soybeans?