Timothy E. Wirth

The Biofuels Conundrum
Their Potential for Good or Ill is Enormous;
Getting the Rules Right is Critical

Climate change has risen to the forefront of the international agenda, and not just
as an environmental issue—for its economic, political, and security implications as
Bueno. Preventing catastrophic climate change is the challenge of this generation. A
succeed, we must foster a new energy economy in the United States and around the
world, with special emphasis on two economic sectors—power generation and
transportation—and their dominant fuel sources, coal and oil. Both areas pose
very large challenges, but transportation may be the more difficult because the sec-
tor depends almost completely on a single fuel.

Recientemente, much attention has been paid to the potential of ethanol—and bio-
fuels more broadly—to substitute for gasoline at large scale. Ethanol, particularly
from corn, is no panacea, but over time biofuels—especially “second-generation”
biofuels from non-food crops—could make a substantial positive contribution.
Their development could also come at great environmental cost. Sensible policies
are needed that consider the long-term consequences of our actions.

Long-term thinking, unfortunately,

is not a leading American virtue.
Corporations seek short-term profits over long-term gains, driven by the pressure
to report to investors each quarter. Public officials rarely rise above the perceived
demands of the next election cycle in shaping policy. Even high-minded interest

Timothy Wirth is the President of the United Nations Foundation and Better
World Fund. Wirth began his political career as a White House Fellow under
President Lyndon Johnson and was Deputy Assistant Secretary for Education in
the Nixon Administration. Wirth then returned to his home state and successfully
ran for the U.S. House of Representatives, representing Colorado’s 2nd
Congressional District from 1975-1987. In the House, he concentrated his efforts
in the areas of communications technology and budget policy. En 1986, Wirth was
elected to the U.S. Senate where he focused on environmental issues, especially
global climate change and population stabilization. Wirth chose not to run for re-
election. Following those two decades of elected politics, Wirth served in the U.S.
Department of State as the first Undersecretary for Global Affairs from 1993 a
1997. In this position he coordinated U.S. foreign policy in the areas of refugees,
población, ambiente, ciencia, human rights and narcotics. Wirth is a gradu-
ate of Harvard College and holds a PhD from Stanford University.

© 2008 Timothy E. Wirth
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Timothy E. Wirth

groups often have difficulty seeing the forest from the trees. Yet long-term think-
ing will be essential to preserving a livable climate on Earth.

To avoid catastrophic consequences for our planet, there is broad scientific
consensus that we should hold global temperature increases to 2 degrees
Centigrade, and to do that the U.S. must join other industrialized countries in
reducing emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by roughly 80
percent by 2050. That means we must start moving immediately and aggressively
towards a low-carbon economy. Along the way, we must pay careful attention to
the effects that our actions have on the environmental life cycle and human health,
and make mid-term corrections as needed.

Would biofuels be any
mejor? They could be much
better—and in December
Estados Unidos. Congress placed a
big bet on them…

Transportation is a critical area
to address, as the consumption of
petroleum-based fuels is expected to
double worldwide by 2050 if we
simply stay on the track we are on.
Además, the history of our rela-
tionship with automobiles and
petroleum provides many examples
of unintended consequences—
choices that seemed right at the
time and turned out badly over the
long run. Gasoline, to take but one
is a highly useful fuel
ejemplo,
–compact, dense, and readily portable—but we experience the adverse health
effects of gasoline emissions through the air we breathe every day. Abundant fossil
fuels have led to unprecedented global prosperity—but their emissions are upset-
ting the delicate balance of the global climate. Petroleum has made possible cheap
transportation of people, goods and services—but our dependence on oil has had
disastrous consequences for our national security, trade balance, and the purchas-
ing power of the dollar.

Would biofuels be any better? They could be much better—and in December
the U.S. Congress placed a big bet on them in the Energy Independence and
Security Act of 2007, amending the so-called “renewable fuels standard” to require
the use of 36 billion gallons of biofuels by 2022—more than a sixfold increase from
today’s consumption. This certainty of explosive growth means that we must think
through all its implications and govern the transition to new fuels with sensible
long-term policies. Energy is a rules-based business, and to get the outcome we
want, we have to get the rules right.

Toward that end, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies in
Washington, with support from the United Nations Foundation, convened a scien-
tific roundtable in November 2007 to explore the health and environmental
impacts of today’s fuels and identify research needs related to increased use of bio-
fuels—not just in the U.S., but globally.1 The purpose was to anticipate and avoid

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The Biofuels Conundrum

any adverse consequences of new fuel choices—and in that way break with the
pasado.

UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES

The following history lesson is instructive—with thanks to C. Boyden Gray, A NOSOTROS.
Ambassador to the European Union and a longtime student of this subject.2 In
Henry Ford’s day, the nascent automobile industry needed octane to combat the
problem of premature combustion—engine knock—so cars could climb hills and
carry bigger loads. Ethanol is a high-octane fuel, and the vision of Henry Ford and
other auto industry founders such as Charles Kettering of General Motors was that
cars would run on ethanol, either alone or in combination with gasoline. Ford was
concerned that autos would generate pollution, so he spent considerable time and
money to study various sources of alcohol fuel.

But the federal government put a damper on what might have been the first
ethanol boom. To help pay for the Civil War, Congress had placed an excise tax of
$2 per gallon on alcohol and didn’t repeal it until the early 20th century. That made
ethanol too expensive for Ford. Entonces, during Prohibition, the IRS told Ford that it
was illegal to distill alcohol, even to put into auto tanks.

The beneficiary of these barriers to ethanol was tetraethyl lead, which General
Motors researcher Thomas Midgley discovered could boost octane when added to
gasoline. Also helping its fortunes were a couple of other benefits: it was cheap to
make, and unlike alcohol, it could be patented. Despite early evidence of lead’s poi-
sonous effects, the responsibility for researching its health impacts was left to the
industria. Por 1960, leaded gasoline had captured nearly 90 percent of the U.S. mar-
ket for automotive fuels. And only in the 1960s did research start to show that lead-
ed gasoline produces exhaust that harms everyone who breathes the air it pol-
lutes—and that children are especially vulnerable.

When the severe health problems posed by lead pollution became known, el
additive was phased out by the newly created Environmental Protection Agency
after the Clean Air Act was passed in 1970. Pero de nuevo, unintended consequences
prevailed. Refiners had two basic choices for additives to boost octane: alcohol-
based fuels such as ethanol, and chemicals known as aromatics—including the
substances benzene, toluene, and xylene. The latter were already present in gaso-
line and were both inexpensive and within the control of the oil refiners, haciendo
them the clear choice. The harmful effects of these aromatic compounds were
known at the time, but because they were already in gasoline, adding more to the
mix did not fall afoul of EPA regulations.

The proportion of aromatics added to gasoline grew from about 22 por ciento de
gasoline in the early 1970s to about a third by 1990. That year, major amendments
to the Clean Air Act were signed into law, directing EPA to promulgate new regu-
lations to lower the toxicity of air from auto emissions. EPA was instructed to study
the need for and feasibility of controls on air toxics from mobile sources (MSATs)
and to issue regulations seeking the “greatest degree of emission reduction achiev-

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Timothy E. Wirth

able through the application of technology which will be available.”3 But in 2007,
aromatics still compose roughly a quarter of most tanks of gas and present health
risks, some of which we still don’t fully understand.

THE RISKS OF AROMATICS

The cancer-causing properties of benzene are well accepted. Acute myelogenous
leukemia is the primary cancer linked to benzene. EPA classifies benzene as a haz-
ardous substance under the Safe Drinking Water Act and a hazardous air pollutant
under the Clean Air Act. El
World Health Organization
has concluded that there is no
safe level of benzene expo-
sure.

Reductions in fine particulates
would offer benefits worth tens
of billions of dollars. Aromatics
are considered the most
significant gaseous precursors.

Toluene and xylene, otro
aromatic molecules, are also
designated as hazardous air
pollutants under the Clean
Air Act. Benzene is a direct
product of gasoline combus-
tion and also is formed by the
combustion of toluene and xylene. EPA estimates that non-benzene aromatics
contribute about 30 percent of benzene emissions.4

Air pollution forms when the combustion of chemicals in gasoline leads to by-
products that end up both in the air at ground level and higher up in the atmos-
phere. These by-products combine to form fine particulates, which are harmful to
the lungs when inhaled.

Aromatics differ from other parts of gasoline because their carbon atoms are
so tightly bonded to their neighbors in rings that they are harder to burn than any
other kind of hydrocarbon. Incomplete combustion leads to more particulate
emissions. Simpler chains of hydrocarbons, such as ethanol, burn more complete-
ly.

While scientists have known that high levels of particulates cause premature
death, recent studies in the U.S. and Europe have found that much lower levels may
also be associated with premature death, according to a report presented by Dan
Greenbaum, President of the Health Effects Institute, at the Institute of Medicine
roundtable. Finer-grained particles are more harmful than bigger specks of pollu-
tion because they lodge more deeply in human lungs.5

The EPA has estimated that approximately 60,000 excess deaths occur annual-
ly as a result of particulate air pollution, most of them from cardiovascular causes.
In one major study, the strongest links to disease stemmed from particles of 2.5
microns or less. That study also established an association with lung cancer mor-
tality.6

Reductions in fine particulates would offer benefits worth tens of billions of

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The Biofuels Conundrum

dollars, assuming the EPA’s health risk estimates are correct. EPA stated in 2005
that aromatics are considered to be the most significant gaseous precursors of car-
bon-based fine particulates.7 Gasoline aromatics are carbon-based, and carbon-
based particulates appear to be more dangerous to public health than the sulfur
and nitrogen aerosols associated with stationary sources and automobile emis-
siones.

Other research has shown a link between the risk for heart attacks and living
close to a road. One study found that living within 100 meters of a roadside raises
the risk for acute myocardial infarction by 4 a 5 por ciento, which is a highly signif-
icant increase for nations, including the U.S., with that are urbanizing rapidly.8

University of Cincinnati environmental health professor Grace LeMasters
reported at the Institute of Medicine roundtable that proximity to motor vehicle
exhaust also appears to increase wheezing in infants, which may be linked to
increased levels of childhood asthma.

THE ETHANOL ALTERNATIVE

Ethanol provides the same octane benefit as aromatics, but when the EPA tight-
ened limits on benzene in gasoline in 2007 (after being sued by an environmental
grupo), it declined to place limits on all aromatics. It failed to seek what the law
required: the “greatest degree of emission reduction achievable” of these air toxics.
Ironically, ethanol use is surging as a result of another regulatory failure. El
1990 Clean Air Act amendments required the use of oxygenated fuels in the win-
ter in areas where carbon monoxide pollution was the worst. The initial winner
was a chemical compound called MTBE. Sin embargo, leaks from underground tanks
contaminated ground water and were hard to clean up, and when Congress refused
to provide liability protection to MTBE producers, the compound was pulled from
the market. Ethanol was the only remaining substitute.

A 10 percent ethanol blend can reduce the emissions of benzene by 25 por ciento
compared to regular gasoline. The EPA, in this year’s rule on benzene reductions,
stated, “With ethanol use expected to more than double, we expect a significant
reduction in aromatics levels…. [W.]ith all of this ethanol, there will be excess
octane in the gasoline pool. De este modo, not only will increased ethanol use decrease aro-
matics concentrations through dilution, but refiners will make the economic deci-
sion to use ethanol to reduce or avoid producing aromatics for the purpose of
increasing octane.”9

De este modo, the EPA expects that increased demand for ethanol will accomplish the
reduction in aromatics that it failed to require by regulation. It would be wiser for
federal policy makers to mandate the gradual phase out of toxic aromatic com-
pounds in favor of ethanol as a gasoline additive.

This case study illustrates a failure to think through all the consequences of
fuel choices. Just as important as the air pollution effects of transportation fuels,
sin embargo, is their contribution to the world’s greenhouse gas emissions—about one
quarter now, and transportation is among the fastest-growing sources of emis-

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siones. To avoid catastrophic consequences from global warming, we need to move
with great urgency away from petroleum products. Al mismo tiempo, for the next
decade or so, we have little choice but to continue using gasoline and diesel to run
our fleets of vehicles.

Part of the solution will involve developing an international industry to pro-
duce biofuels, first as a fuel additive, and then as the industry ramps up, as a
replacement fuel. Plant-based fuels offer a double benefit. In addition to creating
new economic opportunities, they provide an alternative to gasoline with a much
lower carbon footprint: because plants take carbon dioxide out of the air in order
to grow, their carbon is part of the natural cycle. Fossil fuels, por otro lado,
take long-buried carbon out of the earth and add it to the atmosphere. Yet we need
to approach the development of this industry with a much more thoughtful
approach than we have with fuels in the past.

The early research on ethanol as a gasoline additive is largely positive. Alcohols
added to fuels make them burn at lower temperatures and thus more completely.
De este modo, ethanol blends result in lower emissions of nitrogen oxide and particulate
asunto.

One study suggests that the now-common 10% ethanol blends, known as E10,
have been credited with reducing emissions of carbon monoxide by as much as
30% and particulates by 50%. The effects on ozone smog varies by atmospheric
condiciones. Mixing low levels of ethanol (2% a 10%) with gasoline increases the
blend’s tendency to evaporate and thus can contribute to low-level ozone, pero esto
volatility can be reduced by changes in the blending process. Perhaps more signif-
icantly, the problem is reduced as the level of ethanol is increased. At blends of 25%
y 45%, the fuel is about as evaporative as gasoline, and at higher blends it is less
entonces.

In studies of high-level ethanol blends, known as E85, the impact on air qual-
ity is almost uniformly positive—with one exception: researchers have measured
increased emissions of another class of pollutants known as aldehydes, incluido
acetaldehyde. Better engine technology offers a potential solution: Conventional
catalytic converters control these emissions in ethanol blends of up to 23%, y eso
is expected that they could be readily adapted to E85 blends.10 A test of advanced
emission control systems in three conventional gasoline vehicles found that
advanced systems reduced formaldehyde emissions by an average of 85% y
acetaldehyde by an average of 58%.11 Sin embargo, additional research is needed.

The recent Institute of Medicine roundtable identified a variety of research
questions that need to be addressed with regard to new fuel strategies and the rapid
ramp up of biofuels. They include: What are the effects of emissions of acetalde-
hydes and formaldehydes on health? What pollution mixes enter the air in what
amounts as ethanol is added in varying amounts to gasoline? What are the syner-
gistic effects on combustion of ethanol and gasoline mixtures? What are the effects
of small particles on health, especially in the increasingly diesel-dependent
European Union? This is an important research agenda, and it is consistent with
thinking seriously about the transition to new transportation fuels.

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The Biofuels Conundrum

It is likely that biofuels can be produced at very large scale globally. This new
industry can be developed in a way that is beneficial for farmers and rural
economías, for the environment, and for public health. Sin embargo, the opposite is
also true, and many alarmists have warned of the dangers—usually based on pro-
jections of uncontrolled expansion of corn ethanol.

Corn ethanol is relatively easy to produce—the process is little different from
the way alcohol has been made for the last five millennia. But converting the starch
contained in corn kernels and ignoring the rest of the plant is hardly a recipe for
efficient use of a feedstock. Sugarcane grown in Brazil is much more productive
per acre: its fermentable sugars can be accessed directly, and it produces an abun-
dance of waste material that can be burned in industrial boilers to generate elec-
tricity and run the process. That is a better model.

“SECOND GENERATION” BIOFUELS

So-called “second generation” biofuels are headed for commercial production in
el siguiente 2 a 3 years and will be based on cellulose, the fibrous material in plants
that is not used for food. Dedicated energy crops—e.g., native prairie grasses and
fast-growing trees—and waste materials from food crops will be the long-term
source of biofuels, not corn. Similarmente, the term “biofuels” is intentionally vague
because it is impossible to know whether ethanol, butanol, bio-gasoline, or anoth-
er fuel will ultimately be preferred.

Biofuels cannot all be painted with one brush, whether the brush is black or
white. What matters is how the crops and fuels are produced. Cutting down trop-
ical forests in Indonesia to make palm oil-based biodiesel is a bad idea.
Revegetating degraded land in India or Africa with the drought-tolerant jatropha
bush is a good one. In the U.S. farmers have quite a broad array of choices for
growing corn. To take but one example, no-till farming, gaining increasing accept-
ance in the corn belt, greatly reduces the environmental impact of production by
reducing the need for fertilizer and herbicides, thereby minimizing chemical
runoff. But we will need policies to encourage such sustainable production.

Some observers worry about the potential competition for farmland between
“food and fuel.” Increased demand for agricultural resources will tend to increase
crop prices; whether that is good or bad depends on one’s perspective. The surg-
ing popularity of corn ethanol has brought new life to rural Midwestern commu-
nities and given farmers what they see as the first fair price for their product in a
generación. Higher grain prices benefit farmers worldwide. En efecto, these higher
prices have partially accomplished the principal objective of the Doha develop-
ment trade round: to eliminate the depressing effect that Western farm subsidies
have on world grain prices and improve the ability of the rural poor to earn a liv-
ing from their land.

Global malnutrition is caused not by a lack of food but by a lack of money to
pay for it, and by a failure to distribute it effectively. Higher crop prices result in
higher food prices (albeit not on a 1-for-1 basis), increasing the cost of feeding the

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Timothy E. Wirth

poor—but that is morally and economically preferable to subsidizing rich and
poor alike by keeping crop prices low and impoverishing farmers. Higher oil
prices, which biofuels seek to restrain, have at least as large an impact on the price
of food. In the U.S., Procesando, packaging, distribution and marketing—each
directly impacted by rising energy costs—consume about 80 cents of every retail
food dollar.12

Biofuels cannot all be
painted with one brush,
whether the brush is black
or white. What matters is
how the crops and fuels are
produced.

The world’s farmers are capable of increasing the amount of crops they grow
if they have a market for them, and many developing countries have land that is
well-suited to growing crops that
depend on rain—i.e., that do not
need supplemental water. An esti-
acoplado 1.7 billion acres globally
could be planted sustainably if
there were demand.13 Increased
justify
demand would
increased investment, bringing fer-
tilizer and mechanized equipment
to land that has never seen them
and increasing the production of
both food and fiber. The recent
introduction of fertilizer subsidies
led to
in Malawi, Por ejemplo,
increased crop production, lower food prices, and higher wages for farm workers.14
Planting energy crops and producing biofuels would mean more income and less
poverty as well as other benefits: more rural economic development, less migration
to crowded cities, and the availability of clean fuels to replace smoky wood fires
whose air pollution now kills 1.6 million people every year, mostly women and
children.15 Getting appropriate policies in place to achieve these outcomes, howev-
es, is a formidable challenge; land tenure policy that protects indigenous farmers is
just one thorny example.

también

While agricultural goods account for only 8 percent of total global trade, pri-
mary energy commodities represent 52 percent of the total—and thus offer
tremendous opportunities for international economic development. The transfor-
mation is possible, as Brazil has demonstrated: después 30 years of effort, renewable
energy supplies 44.5 percent of the nation’s energy needs.16 We need to help devel-
oping nations assess their biofuels potential, quantifying the real-world costs and
benefits of these policies compared to the status quo.

Biofuels have great potential—for good or ill. We still have time to make the
right choices on developing biofuels globally and to move rapidly to second-gen-
eration feedstocks to produce fuels from cellulosic sources. We still have time to
make choices that consider the long-term consequences of our actions. But we
must do so with thoughtful consideration of a complex array of issues, and we
must start now.

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The Biofuels Conundrum

1. Institute of Medicine, Taller 13: Environmental Health, Energía, and Transportation, Nov. 29-

30, 2007 .

2. C. Boyden Gray and Andrew R. Varcoe, “Octane, Clean Air and Renewable Fuels: A Modest Step
Toward Energy Independence,” Texas Review of Law & Política, volumen. 10, No. 1, Caer 2005, páginas. 9-62
(http://www.trolp.org/main_pgs/issues/v10n1/Gray.pdf).

3. 42 USC. § 7521, Emission standards for new motor vehicles or new motor vehicle engines, sub-
sección (yo)(2): Mobile source-related air toxics—Standards .

4. A NOSOTROS. Environmental Protection Agency, “Control of Hazardous Air Pollutants from Mobile
Fuentes,” Feb. 28, 2006, published Mar. 29, 2006, pag. 15864 (70 Fed. Reg. 15804)
.

5. A NOSOTROS. Environmental Protection Agency, “Particle Pollution and Your Health,” EPA-452/F-03-001,

Septiembre 2003 .

6. C. Arden Pope III, PhD; Richard T. Burnett, PhD; miguel j.. Thun, Maryland; Eugenia E. Calle, PhD;
Daniel Krewski, PhD; Kazuhiko Ito, PhD; George D. Thurston, ScD, “Lung Cancer,
Cardiopulmonary Mortality, and Long-term Exposure to Fine Particulate Air Pollution,” JAMA
(Journal of the American Medical Association), 2002; 287:1132-1141 .

7. See Proposed Rule To Implement the Fine Particle National Ambient Air Quality Standards, 70

Fed. Reg. en 65,995, 65,996 (“Proposed PM2.5 Implementation Rule”) (citing D. Grosjean & J.H.
Seinfeld, Parameterization of the Formation Potential of Secondary Organic Aerosols, 23
Atmospheric Env’t 1733 (1989)).

8. Cathryn Tonne, Steve Melly, Murray Mittleman, Brent Coull, Robert Goldberg, and Joel Schwartz,
“A Case–Control Analysis of Exposure to Traffic and Acute Myocardial Infarction,"
Ambiental
53-57
.

Perspectives,

Enero

Salud

115:1,

2007,

páginas.

9. A NOSOTROS. Environmental Protection Agency, “Control of Hazardous Air Pollutants From Mobile

Fuentes,"
published February 26, 2007 (72 Fed. Reg. 8428), pag. 8479
.

10. Ngo Anh-Thu and Gale West, “Advantages and Disadvantages of Using Ethanol: The Consumer
2004
Universidad,

Viewpoint,"
24,
.

Laval

Aug.

11. The Manufacturers of Emission Controls Association, “MECA Demonstration Program of
Advanced Emission Control Systems for Light-Duty Vehicles,” May 1999, páginas. 10-11
.

12. Chuck Conner, Acting U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Remarks to the Renewable Fuels
Asociación,
2007
.

Washington,

Oct.

corriente continua,

2,

13. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), “Food requirements and pop-
ulation growth,” technical background document prepared for the 1996 World Food Summit,
volumen. 1, Sec. 3.133, .

14. Celia W. Dugger, “Ending Famine, Simply by Ignoring the Experts,"El New York Times, Dec. 2,
2007 .
15. United Nations Statistics Division, “Progress towards the Millennium Development Goals, 1990-
2005

and Social Affairs,

Junio 13,

2005,” UN Department of
.

Económico

16. Cláudio Frischtak, Presidente, Inter.B Consultoria Internacional de Negócios, quoted in “Brazil:

Nuclear Energy?” Latin Business Chronicle, Puede 29, 2007
.

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