Newswise — A select national committee from academia and industry just spent more than a year analyzing the complicated issues of biofuels. They didn’t come up with answers, but they did define the questions—not an easy task. “At least we framed the dialogue,” says committee member Kathleen Halvorsen, a professor with a dual appointment in social sciences and forest resources/environmental science at Michigan Technological University.
Halvorsen studies the relationships between people and the environment. She earned a position on the National Research Council’s biofuels study committee because her research addresses the forest policy dimensions of bioenergy development, as well as the attitudes of landowners who would supply the feedstock for biofuels.
“There are so many dimensions intermingled (in the debate on biofuels),” Halvorsen says. They involve energy, agriculture and the environment; they have social and technological implications; they impact an “almost infinite” number of ecological systems around the globe; they affect both the consumers who would use the product and the landowners who would supply the feedstock. In a nutshell, biofuels may be “the most complex energy source.”
How the industry might evolve is murky, for there is no existing yardstick. The US doesn’t have the industrial plants to produce advanced cellulosic biofuels on a commercial scale.
It is also controversial. “There are very strong advocates for biofuels. There are equally strong sentiments against biofuels,” Halvorsen says. “Some argue that it will reduce greenhouse gases. Others argue that we can’t produce biofuels without negative impacts.” If corn is used for fuel instead of food, one concern is that food costs will rise and increase hunger globally.
Yet, the need for alternative fuels is pressing. The US imports 55 percent of the crude oil the nation consumes.
Drivers for expanding biofuel technology include crude oil prices; feedstock costs and availability; appropriate and efficient production plants; changes in land use; and government policy, says Halvorsen.
“Our hope is that this committee’s scientific evaluation sheds some light on the heat of the debate, as we have delineated the issues and the consequences as we see them, together with all the inherent uncertainty.”
The NRC committee report, “Renewable Fuel Standard: Potential Economic and Environmental Effects of US Biofuel Policy,” has been released in prepublication form and will soon be available in final form. To download a free copy, see http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13105
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