Plug-in Hybrid and Cellulosic
Technologies Score Well; Grim Picture for Corn Ethanol and Liquid Coal
Philadelphia, PA—One week after Gov. Rendell signed into law an
alternative fuels initiative for Pennsylvania, PennEnvironment released
a new report exploring the environmental impacts of the alternative
fuels being promoted to help wean us off of oil. The report found
liquid coal, corn ethanol and soy biodiesel to have the worst
environmental impacts, while plug-in hybrid vehicles and cellulosic
ethanol made from crop waste hold the most promise for meeting our fuel
needs with the least environmental harm.
“Just because it’s not oil doesn’t make it the answer,” said Nathan
Willcox, Energy & Clean Air Advocate with PennEnvironment. “While
we need to wean ourselves off of oil for the good of Pennsylvania’s
environment, our economy and our national security, we can’t afford to
make things worse by advancing the wrong alternative fuels.”
The report, Beyond Oil: The Transportation Fuels That Can Help
Reduce Global Warming, evaluates the leading contenders in the
alternative fuels race, with a specific focus on their impact on global
warming and the environment. Key findings include:
• Corn Ethanol: High-volume corn ethanol production does not
result in lower global warming emissions than gasoline. In fact, full
life-cycle emissions from corn ethanol may be twice as high as
gasoline, when secondary land-use impacts are taken into account. The
increased production of corn ethanol has also caused a host of other
problems including water pollution and competition for cropland used
for food.
• Biodiesel: If produced from soybeans, the most common
biodiesel feedstock, biodiesel is at least 50 percent more polluting
than conventional diesel and, like corn ethanol, can cause many other
problems associated with high-intensity agriculture. The report also
found that life-cycle global warming emissions from biodiesel can be as
much as 98 percent less than conventional diesel, if the diesel
is made from waste cooking oil.
• Natural Gas: While natural gas reduces air pollution and
global warming pollution compared with gasoline vehicles, natural gas
fueling infrastructure is expensive and domestic supplies of natural
gas are both finite and increasingly constrained.
• Hydrogen: While it has long been touted as the
transportation fuel of the future, the environmental impacts of
hydrogen depend greatly on how it is produced, and hydrogen-powered
vehicles are still a long way from being available to American
consumers.
• Plug-in hybrids and all-electric vehicles: Because
electric motors are far more efficient than internal combustion
engines, vehicles that use electricity almost always produce less
global warming pollution than gasoline vehicles, even when the
electricity used to fuel them is generated from coal. Plug-in hybrids
powered by the average U.S. electricity mix are 50% less polluting than
gasoline. The benefits are far greater when vehicles are fueled with
electricity from renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power.
• Cellulosic Ethanol: Producing cellulosic ethanol (which is
derived from sugars trapped in leaves and stalks of plants, as opposed
the nutritive portions of the plant) from certain feedstocks can
greatly reduce global warming pollution. Cellulosic ethanol made from
crop waste or prairie grass grown on abandoned or marginal cropland can
have emissions well below that of gasoline.
• Liquid Coal: Transportation fuel produced from coal
creates at least 80 percent more global warming pollution than
gasoline. Liquid coal’s high pollution levels can be attributed to its
high-carbon energy source (coal) and its heavy processing
requirements.
Yet PennEnvironment noted that many Pennsylvania lawmakers have been
pushing a proposal to build the country’s first liquid coal production
facility in Schuylkill County. Liquid coal is also an incredibly
expensive fuel to produce—so much so that groups ranging from the Cato
Institute to Taxpayers for Common Sense have opposed government support
of the technology.
“As the race for alternative fuels accelerates, we must focus on the
options that help tackle global warming and avoid severe environmental
impacts,” concluded Willcox. “Most notably, we need to put the brakes
on the rush to corn ethanol and liquid coal, and move toward 21st
century technologies like plug-in hybrids and other fuels that do not
create as many problems as they solve.”
The report makes a number of recommendations to local, state and
federal policymakers for achieving large reductions in global warming
pollution from vehicles while reducing our oil dependence:
• Adopt requirements to lower the carbon content of transportation
fuels, including amending the recently passed federal renewable fuels
standard to require that all ethanol sold be subject to a low carbon
fuel standard.
• Reject policies that promote or subsidize fuels that would make
the problem worse.
• Require that by 2020, all new vehicles are capable of using lower
carbon fuels, whether electricity or bio-fuels.
• Support additional research into cultivation techniques for
cellulosic feedstock and into technologies for converting cellulosic
feed-stocks, especially waste, into fuel.
• Improve vehicle fuel economy and pursue measures to reduce total
driving. These measures would further cut global warming emissions and
reduce our vulnerability to rapid changes in the global petroleum
market.
Based on these criteria, PennEnvironment offered a mixed review of the
Pennsylvania biofuels initiative—Act 78—that was recently passed by the
state legislature and signed into law last Thursday by Gov. Rendell.
Broadly, the initiative requires that alternative fuels—most notably
cellulosic ethanol and biodiesel—make up an increasing percentage of
every gallon of transportation fuel sold in Pennsylvania, as the
in-state production levels of those alternative fuels increases.
Willcox said the Act’s focus on cellulosic ethanol and
biodiesel—instead of corn ethanol—was its main highlight. Also, the
Act contains very clean definitions of cellulosic ethanol and
biodiesel, requiring that cellulosic and biodiesel fuels must emit
significantly less global warming pollution than regular gasoline and
diesel to count towards the Act’s requirement. However, Willcox also
cautioned that the level of in-state production of cellulosic ethanol
required for the cellulosic per-gallon requirement to kick in was set
so high—350 million gallons—that there is a very real possibility the
Act won’t actually drive cellulosic ethanol use in Pennsylvania for
many years to come.
But Willcox pointed to the Act’s inclusion of liquid coal as being its
most severe flaw. Specifically, the Act allows liquid coal to be
counted in place of biodiesel towards the Act’s biodiesel requirement.
And while the global warming pollution created by the liquid coal must
be fully “offset,” either through sequestration or through
to-be-determined carbon offset programs, such language is widely viewed
as inadequate to address the severe global warming pollution threat
posed by liquid coal, as articulated in a June 2007 letter to state
legislators that was signed by a dozen state and national environmental
groups.
“As great as the new alternative fuel standard’s focus on cellulosic
ethanol and biodiesel could be for Pennsylvania’s environment, the
inclusion of liquid coal in any alternative fuels policy is
inexcusable,” said Willcox. “Liquid coal—beyond being incredibly
expensive—could be the single most dangerous threat to efforts to curb
global warming pollution. It is critical that our state leaders
abandon support of this taxpayer boondoggle, and instead support the
clean, sustainable alternative fuel options that will allow us to meet
our fuel needs without sacrificing the quality of our environment.”
“By committing to an approach that combines the best technologies, the
cleanest fuels, and that sets rigorous environmental standards for
alternative fuels, Pennsylvania and America as a whole can improve its
energy security, while cutting global warming pollution and protecting
our environment,” concluded Willcox.
