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With last year's energy law mandating the use of 36 billion gallons of biofuels by 2022 questions remain as to how the U.S. is going to meet these new standards, and whether a surge in biofuels production will actually yield environmental benefits. During today's OnPoint, Noblis chemical engineer Darryl Banks details the findings of the first phase of his organization's biofuels lifecycle assessment. Noblis is a non-profit science, technology, and strategy organization. Banks explains how deforestation and the development of cellulosic technologies play into the overall risk/benefit analysis of biofuels. He also comments on recent reports highlighting the negative impacts of biofuels on the environment.
Monica Trauzzi: Welcome to OnPoint. I'm Monica Trauzzi. Joining me today is Dr. Darryl Banks, a chemical engineer and former Rhodes Scholar with Noblis, a non-profit science, technology, and strategy organization. Darryl, thanks for coming on the show.
Darryl Banks: Sure, thank you for inviting me.
Monica Trauzzi: Darryl, your organization has created a biofuels lifecycle assessment to help us understand what the impacts of new biofuels mandates could mean down the line. It's sort of a long-term look at what an approach like this might have. And you focus on corn ethanol, cellulosic, and biodiesel. Tell me a bit more about this initiative and why you started it up and what you're hoping to achieve here.
Darryl Banks: Sure, I'd be more than happy to. We decided, about 18 months or so ago, to enlarge certainly our energy practice at the firm. And one of the areas that we wanted to focus on was building on our strengths in terms of developing systems, dynamics, and modeling to help decision-makers to look at complex systems and understand more interestingly and importantly how impacts can weigh in terms of making more prudent decisions. We focused on renewable energy and in that sort of category we wanted to look at biofuels. About 13 or 14 months ago it was just beginning to emerge as a major sort of policy issue, so we wanted to create a tool, a decision-making tool, a policy analysis tool for decision-makers to use looking at the whole lifecycle of these technologies so that one might be able to run simulations in terms of understanding what might be a set of policy outcomes if you were to choose a whole range of input variables. So, we decided to look at three of the major biofuels technologies; ethanol from corn, cellulosic ethanol, and biodiesel.
Monica Trauzzi: And so, what are some of the key factors that are playing into the research?
Darryl Banks: Well, there are certainly, at the front end, factors with regard to what types of feedstocks will you be using, what types of crops, looking at the whole question of land-use considerations, acreage, and yield. We wanted to have the model to be sensitive to various types of natural resource and environmental impacts and in this case we have modeled in sort of overall greenhouse gas types of impacts, as well as water, water consumption. Now, ideally, we're building a framework that would be able to handle other types of impacts such as runoff, nutrient runoff, pesticide use, etc. But in our first phase of our modeling we focused mainly on water and greenhouse gas emissions, frankly, to have something that was going to be practical for us to develop in a relatively short time.
Monica Trauzzi: And there's a lot of back and forth about the impact of biofuels on Capitol Hill. Does this analysis risk becoming just another report among many or do you feel like this does something completely different from any of the other analyses that are out there?
Darryl Banks: Well, we're actually developing an overall sort of framework and tool, not just one report. I mentioned, just a second ago, that our modeling effort not only looks at the front end, the feedstock end, but we'll also be modeling sort of the end use, what happens to the overall system when these fuels go into the economy, into various parts of use by the society, as well as looking at transportation of the fuels and delivery of the fuels into the economy. So, it's really a tool that allows a user to pose a range of questions and look at potential impacts and consequences of those decisions. One can certainly generate, and we'll be generating published reports out of our work, but I think the beauty and utility of this is a framework to really assist in decision-making, to look at a system in a much more comprehensive sense. I should add that when we first started this work, we wanted to get an idea of whether we would be duplicating what's already out there in the system. What could we really add to the debate? We've seen a whole range of models looking at various parts of the biofuel, sort of, chain, but very few that's gone to the lengths of wanting to look at the complete supply chain or lifecycle from the feedstock in the fields through production to the end use at the other end. And that's sort of what we're attempting to do with our work.
Monica Trauzzi: So, what can you tell us about your findings so far? You said Phase 1 has passed at this point. You have several other phases coming along, so what findings have you seen so far?
Darryl Banks: Sure. Well, our first phase was certainly to build this out, to make sure that it emulated reality that you could see in the basic production, the production of the grain so to speak, the production from the feedstock through alcohol and other fuels to the end use. One of the things that we certainly wanted to focus on in this first phase was getting an idea of the sensitivity of this system to meet at least the baseline policy goals that we've seen in the energy act that was just passed, for example, at the end of this past year. We wanted to get an idea of what would be the sort of structure, for example, of corn supply to meet the 15 billion gallon ethanol target. And this is not necessarily, I think, something that many researchers have not found, but our modeling basically showed that looking at the current rates of just agricultural production, that that 15 billion gallon target was very doable. It was going to be something that could be accomplished relatively ... I won't say easily, but certainly within the next several years. It was not a target that was going to push us to great lengths. Now, one of the things that we found with our modeling that's important to look at in this is that these systems are terribly complex and interrelated and that it is very easy to look at one part or one variable and come to a whole range of conclusions. One of the things we found important in our work, which is why when we talked earlier I mentioned our first phase of work, we found it's going to be very important to build into our modeling the ability to be sensitive to economic pressures and commodity prices, because that's going to have a very important effect in terms of technology choice, in terms of acreage that's planted, etc. So, that's sort of the next phase that we're building into our work at this point in time.
Monica Trauzzi: OK, what about cellulosic? The technology isn't fully developed yet and a lot is riding on this technology being implemented in five to seven years and it quite possibly might not be. So, how does that factor into all this?
Darryl Banks: Well, you know, that's a good question because the corn ethanol technology is relatively mature and we sort of have data outstanding, we've got a decent sense of how to forecast and look at that. The cellulosic presented certainly a challenge for us, because there aren't a whole range of operating plants at full scale. There are the demonstrations that are beginning to start. So, in our modeling effort along those lines we've had to at least make a sense of predictions in terms of when these plants are going to come online to get an idea of what we would meet the targets, even the targets that are specified even indirectly and directly in the Energy Bill of 2007. So, that's become a pretty challenging modeling effort since we have very little hard data to model and not a good sense of which would be the technology that's going to win out. It might be a whole range of those technologies. So, we have to take some considerations there to get at least some sense from our baseline model of how that's going to look. Biodiesel is quite different. It's very similar to corn. You know, the technologies are relatively mature, so there was data available for us, not only historic, the data that we could look at in terms of crop predictions, etc., to build out on that.
Monica Trauzzi: What audience are you trying to target with this information?
Darryl Banks: Well, Noblis is a non-profit company. All of our work is in the public domain and we do a majority of our work with public sector agencies and departments. We're targeting, certainly, decision-makers and policymakers in governments, in legislatures, certainly in departments and agencies, not only federally, but at all levels that would have need to have an ability to look broadly at making complex decisions, particularly energy decisions. And our sense is that it's very valuable to have as objective of a point of view as possible. One that is not necessarily prejudiced by having one set of considerations or the other, but having a tool that would allow policymakers to put in very objective pieces of information and come to hopefully objective conclusions, which would be a sound set of policy directions.
Monica Trauzzi: And you mentioned the 2007 energy law and it calls for 36 billion gallons of biofuels to be used in the U.S. by the year 2022. And I sort of want to get your assessment on that, if you think that that's a viable target based on your research so far.
Darryl Banks: It's certainly our challenging targets. I think the bill goes further in terms of setting a fuel standard, in terms of what will be the volume of renewable biofuels from corn and from other sources, as well as potentially from biodiesel. As I mentioned, we thought that the corn target looks feasible. It looks like it's a doable one. I think there are certainly questions outstanding in terms of when and how the cellulosic target is going to be reached. Biodiesel is very challenging. Just today the prices of soybeans are skyrocketing. That's going to have a bearing in terms of what proportion of that crop is going to go toward biodiesel or for others soy uses. But our work certainly suggested that looking at, for example, this was last year when we finished that work at the end of the year, looking at some of the targets that were suggested in the bill and the debates around the bill, that the soybean crop that's devoted toward biodiesel fuels, it would take a tremendous effort to reach those targets. We could possibly use almost every bean that's produced and still have a ways to go to meet those targets. So, I think the bill certainly lays out some challenging sort of objectives there, particularly I think when you move away from the corn ethanol.
Monica Trauzzi: And final question here. How critical is the deforestation issue and is deforestation playing a role in your overall analysis in terms of how that is impacting overall emissions when it comes to biofuels?
Darryl Banks: It is certainly a very important consideration to look at. I think we've had the papers that have come out at the beginning of the year in Science magazine. I think there's a recent report that's just out in the latest issue of Time magazine that's talking about this issue. I think it's a challenging, it's a very important issue. I think it will be help to look at it in the total lifecycle of these fuels in terms of a whole range of variables. I would just caution and say that to bring the issue to the table looking at only one particular dynamic might not do it justice. But I think it is a critical consideration and has to be looked at very critically. But, certainly in the light of other types of commodity pressures globally, I think in light of certainly the pressures that are taking place around the world with regard to the need for foodstuffs in general, which is requiring more land to go toward agriculture. But I think it's a critical issue and trying to figure out what proportion of that criticality is going to be due to biofuels is something that I think a lifecycle set of assessments can really help us.
Monica Trauzzi: All right. We're going to end it right there on that note. Thanks for coming on the show.
Darryl Banks: Thank you very much.
Monica Trauzzi: This is OnPoint. I'm Monica Trauzzi. Thanks for watching.
[End of Audio]
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