Transcript Slide 1

Climate Change Impacts on Biofuel
Production
Rick Cruse ([email protected])– Iowa Water Center
Gene Takle ([email protected]) – Climate Science Initiative
Iowa State University
Presented at: American Chemical Society Meetings
April 11, 2008
ACS Position on Global
Climate Change
Careful and comprehensive scientific
assessments have clearly demonstrated that
the Earth’s climate system is changing rapidly in
response to growing atmospheric burdens of
greenhouse gases and absorbing aerosol
particles (IPCC, 2007). There is very little room
for doubt that observed climate trends are due
to human activities. The threats are serious and
action is urgently needed to mitigate the risks of
climate change.
Vision
 Replace
equivalent of 30% of liquid fuels
by 2030
 Derived dominantly from plant biomass – a
renewable resource
Perlack, Robert D., Lynn L. Wright, Anthony F. Turnhollow, Robin L. Graham, Bryce
J. Stokes, and Donald C. Erbach. 2005. Biomass as a Feedstock for a Bioenergy and Bioproducts
Industry: the Technical Feasibility of a Billion-ton Annual Supply. DOE/GO-102005-2135
ORNL/TM-2005/66. Available at: http://www.fs.fed.us/research/.
Burton C. English, Daniel G. De La Torre Ugarte, Kim Jensen, Chad Hellwinckel, Jamey Menard,
Brad Wilson, Roland Roberts, and Marie Walsh. 2006. 25% Renewable Energy for the United States
By 2025: Agricultural and Economic Impacts. The University of Tennessee Institute of
Agriculture Department of Agricultural Economics. http://beag.ag.utk.edu/
Cellulose to Fill the Gap
Goal (billion gal ethanol)
Courtesy of Wally Wilhelm – USDA/ARS
90
75
60
25 x ‘25
October 2007
capacity*
30 x ‘30
(6.9 billion gal)
45
20 in 10
Gap for
cellulose
ethanol
to fill
30
15
Energy Policy Act
0
2005
2015
2025
Ethanol
from corn
2035 (NCGA**)
Year
*RFA, http://www.ethanolrfa.org/industry/statistics/#C
**NCGA, http://www.ncga.com/ethanol/pdfs/2007/HowMuchEthanolCanComeFromCorn0207.pdf
REAP
Climate Change – Why might it
affect biofuels?
 Natural
resource degradation
Climate Change – Why might it
affect biofuels?
 Direct
effects: crop yields – stress impacts
Climate Change – Why might it
affect biofuels?
 PMS,
biofuels, & climate change
Future Bioeconomy and Natural
Resource Concerns

Plant residues, feedstock for liquid fuels, are
renewable
 Plant residue production dependent on soil
and water resources
 Soil resources are not renewable; water is
only conditionally renewable
 Plant residues required for bioindustry –
Plant residues required for soil and water
conservation
Future Bioeconomy and Its
Impacts on Soil and Water
Resources
 Do
we have the science to identify
acceptable removal rates?
 Can we balance energy needs, financial
interests, and soil/water preservation in
the bioenergy industry?
Residue Impacts on Erosion
Erosion - % of Bare
Effect of Residue Cover on Soil Erosion
100
50
0
30 %
100%
Residue Cover (%)
Laflen, J. M., and T. S. Colvin. Effect of crop residue on soil loss from continuous
row cropping. Trans. Am. Soc. Agric. Eng. 24(3):605-609. 1981.
Soil Erosion Impacts
Kazemi, Masoud, L.C. Dumenil, and T.E. Fenton. 1990. Effects of accelerated erosion
on corn yields of loess-derived and till-derived soils in Iowa. Final report for Soil
Conservation Service, Agreement No. 68-6114-0-8, Des Moines, IA.
Trends in Precipitation
Trends in Precipitation
Groisman, Pavel Ya., Richard W. Knight, David R. Easterling, Thomas R. Karl,
Gabriele C. Hegerl, and Vyacheslav N. Razuvaev. 2005. Trends in intense
precipitation in the climate record. J. of Climate. 18:1326-1350.
Climate Change, Soil & Water
 20%
precipitation leads to 37% erosion
(Lee et al. 1996)
 Runoff
10% - 310% for different Midwest
regions (O’Neal et al. 2005)
 Soil loss 33% - 274% for different
Midwest regions (O’Neal et al. 2005)
Lee, J.L., D.L. Phillips, and R.F. Dodson. 1996. Sensitivity of the US Corn Belt to climate
change and elevated CO2:II. Soil erosion and organic carbon. Agric. Systems 52: 503–521.
Monte R. O’Neal, M.A. Nearing, Roel C. Vining, Jane Southworth, and Rebecca A. Pfeifer.
2005.Climate change impacts on soil erosion in Midwest United States with changes in
crop management. Catena 61:165-184.
Natural Resource Goals Possible
 Common
market for wide range of crops
 Multiple purpose, multiple function
Farmland Ownership


HARVESTED FARMLAND - % Rented1
 Iowa – 56% (Cash rent %: 49, 54, 69% 1982, 1992, 2002 respectively)
 Illinois – 62%
 Indiana – 58%
“When farmers and herders lose control or longterm security over the land they use, the
incentives for maintaining environmentally
sustainable practices are lost.” 2
1http://www.nass.usda.gov/census/census02/volume1/us/st99_2_040_040.pdf
2Millennium
Ecosystem Assessment, 2005. Ecosystems and Human
Well-being: Desertification Synthesis. World Resources Institute, Washington, DC.
Farmland Ownership
 “Nothing
accelerates faster,
stops quicker, or corners harder
1
than a rented car”
1
Personal Communication – Trevor Price, Anheuser Busch ‘ethanol’
distributor. 2006.
Connect the Dots
 Frequency
of extreme climatic events
 Industry needs crop residues
 Incentives for long term land care
 Risk for escalating soil degradation
Crop Yields – Stress Impacts
 Water
 Heat
 Disease
 Insect
pest
Direct Effects
 “It
is projected with Medium Confidence
(about 5 in 10 chance to be correct) that
globally, potential food production will
increase for temperature rises of 1-3 °C,
but decrease for higher temperature
ranges. Fortunately, temperatures are not
expected to rise to these ranges in the
near future.”
IPCC Fourth Assessment Report Summary for Policy Makers
Direct Effects

“Yields of three major crops (corn, soybeans,
and cotton) in the United States are predicted to
decrease by 25-44% under the slowest warming
scenario and 60-79% under the most rapid
warming scenario in our preferred model.”
Schlenker, Wolfram and Michael J. Roberts. 2006. Estimating the impact of climate
change on crop yields: The importance of non-linear temperature effects. Journal of
Economic Literature.
http://www.agecon.ucdavis.edu/research/seminars/files/michaelroberts_climatechang
ecropyields.pdf.
Direct Effects
 Studies
have over estimated the positive
higher CO2 concentration effects on crop
yields.
David Schimel. 2006. Climate Change and Crop Yields: Beyond
Cassandra. Science. 312 (5782):1889-1890.
Direct Effects
Precipitation minus Evaporation for Western US
(25N-40N, 95W-125 W)
R. Seager, et al. 2007. Model Projections of an Imminent Transition to a More Arid
Climate in Southwestern North America. Science, Vol. 316. no. 5828, pp. 1181 - 1184
Direct Effects
Soil and Terrain Suitability Index (SI) for a Range of Rain-Fed Crops and
Pasture Types for the Current Climate
Fischer, et al., 2002: Global agro-ecological assessment for agriculture in the 21st century: methodology and results.
Research Report RR-02-02. ISBN 3-7045-0141-7., International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria,
119 pp. [Online at http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Research/LUC/Papers/gaea.pdf] Cited in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report,
Working Group II, Ch. 5, p. 280.
Direct Effects
IPCC Fourth Assessment Report Summary for Policy Makers
Disease and Insect Pest Stress
 Crops


developed for unique set of
Soils
Climate – means & extremes
• Temperature
• Precipitation

Insect & disease pressure
 Diseases



& insects sensitive
Climate – means & extremes
Energy source (food)
Competition
D. Herzmann, Iowa Environmental Mesonet
Connecting the Dots
 IPCC
science suggests crop productivity
will temporarily increase with changing
climate
 Recent research suggests IPCC report
was overly optimistic
 Food production will likely not meet food
demand.
 Food vs. biofuel
PMS response to
climate change
Political & Moral
Standards
Millennium Ecosystem
Assessment Report
 During
the next 50 years, demand for food
crops is projected to grow by 70–85%
under the MA scenarios, and demand for
water by between 30% and 85%.
Millennium Ecosystem
Assessment Report
 “Over
the past 50 years, humans have
changed ecosystems faster and more
extensively than in any period in human
history.”
 “This degradation of ecosystem services
could get significantly worse during the
next 50 years. It is a barrier to the
achievement of the Millennium
Development Goals.”
Soil Resources
 “Nearly
forty percent of the world's
agricultural land is seriously degraded”1
1World
Resources Institute. 2000.
http://www.commondreams.org/news2000/0523-01.htm
Land Clearing and the Biofuel
Carbon Debt
“Converting rainforests, peatlands, savannas,
or grasslands to produce food-based biofuels
in Brazil, Southeast Asia, and the United States
creates a ‘biofuel carbon debt’ by releasing 17
to 420 times more CO2 than the annual
greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions these
biofuels provide by displacing fossil fuels”1.
1Joseph
Fargione, Jason Hill, David Tilman, Stephen Polasky, and Peter
Hawthorne. 2008. Land clearing and the biofuel carbon debt. Sciencexpress. 7
February 2008. Pp. 1 - 3. www.sciencexpress.org
Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels
Increases Greenhouse Gases Through
Emissions from Land Use Change1
“Using a worldwide agricultural model to
estimate emissions from land use change, we
found that corn-based ethanol, instead of
producing a 20% savings, nearly doubles
greenhouse emissions over 30 years and
increases greenhouse gases for 167 years.”
1Timothy
Searchinger,Ralph Heimlich, R. A. Houghton, Fengxia Dong, Amani Elobeid,
Jacinto Fabiosa, Simla Tokgoz, Dermot Hayes, Tun-Hsiang 2008. Use of U.S.
croplands for biofuels increases greenhouse gases through emissions from land use
change. Sciencexpress. 7 February 2008. Pp. 1 - 3. www.sciencexpress.org
Climate Change
“Several recent studies have addressed
possible future changes in heat waves, and
found that, in a future climate, heat waves are
expected to be more intense, longer lasting
and more frequent.”1
1Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change. 2007. Working Group I: The
Physical Science Basis for Climate Change.
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Print_TS.pdf
The Ethanol Vision
Goal (billion gal ethanol)
Courtesy of Wally Wilhelm – USDA/ARS
90
75
60
25 x ‘25
October 2007
capaciy*
30 x ‘30
(6.9 billion gal)
45
20 in 10
30
15
Energy Policy Act
0
2005
2015
2025
2035
Year
*RFA, http://www.ethanolrfa.org/industry/statistics/#C
**NCGA, http://www.ncga.com/ethanol/pdfs/2007/HowMuchEthanolCanComeFromCorn0207.pdf
REAP
Connecting the Dots
 Food
vs. fuel is a real dilemma
 Climate change will likely reduce food
production potential globally
 Demand for food-producing land area will
likely increase, as will that for biofuels
 PMS will control the extent of biofuel
production in an increasingly hungry world
“Simply plugging in ‘renewable resources’ to replace
fossil resources is not enough. The world just
cannot support the level of energy use that the
current ‘developed’ nations enjoy. Either we change
our lifestyle to reduce inputs, or we diminish our
numbers. Attempting to grow the supply side of
energy or any other of a suite of resources will fail in
the long haul because we are up against the
ultimate carrying capacity of the earth. If we ignore
this fact and the current warning signs, Mother
Nature will make the choice for us”—
Steven Fales, Professor of agronomy
and associate director, Office of
Biorenewables Programs, ISU
0