GoodFuels

Flaws in Indirect Land Use Theory

The study that started all the outcry over ethanol and indirect land use change comes up lacking in the science department.

Two researchers from Sydney, Australia decided to do scholarly analysis of the study by Tim Searchinger et al. and found the science fell far short of acceptable scientific standards. This should actually come as no great surprise, since Searchinger is a lawyer/environmental activist, not a scientist.

In their analysis, Professor John Mathews and Dr. Hao Tan from Macquarie University in Sydney described Searchinger’s study as “more ideology than science and seeking to put biofuels in worst possible light.”

The Searchinger et al. paper is framed in extremely negative terms that depict all biofuel production taking place in the USA and all derived from corn. It calculates land use change effects through the indirect route of assuming that diversion of corn to ethanol in the USA creates a shortfall that has to be made up by farmers planting grain crops in the rest of the world – rather than assuming that farmers are taking decisions to grow biofuel crops around the world using crops adapted to their environment, such as sugarcane in Brazil. The study then deliberately ignores possible trade effects, such as a proportion of this ethanol spike being met by imports from countries such as Brazil. It even ignores the Congressional cap that was placed on US first-generation corn-based ethanol, which was levied at 15 billion gallons (i.e., half the spike used by Searchinger et al.).

“If you wished to put U.S. ethanol production in the worst possible light, assuming the worst possible set of production conditions guaranteed to give the worst possible set of indirect land use effects, then the assumptions would not be far from those actually presented in the Searchinger et al. paper,” commented Dr. Hao Tan. “Frankly, better science upon which to base rule-making is available today.”

All the things the corn and ethanol industries have been trying to point out. Interestingly, the analysis was actually published in BioFPR earlier this year and is just getting a belated, some are calling “mysterious,” PR boost. Regardless, it makes valid points about the assumptions used in the Searchinger model that need to be heard.