(October 20, 2010)  Washington - The unproven notion that expanded U.S. ethanol production means new acres around the world must be brought into cultivation is taking another blow.  In  a soon-to-be published paper,  researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory conclude that indirect land use change (ILUC) resulting from expanded corn ethanol production over the past decade has likely been “minimal to zero.”

"The most recent work on ILUC is showing that ethanol expansion in the U.S. simply isn’t incurring the type of land use changes that were originally hypothesized," said Renewable Fuels Association Vice President for Research and Analysis Geoff Cooper. "The initial results recently presented by the Department of Energy are further proof that America can continue to meet its global responsibilities to provide food and feed, while simultaneously providing a cleaner, domestic alternative to petroleum—all without needing to bring new lands into agriculture." Read more of what Cooper has to say on this issue at the RFA blog. 

The Oak Ridge analysis, first presented to an expert working group focusing on California's low carbon fuel standard (LCFS) last week, looked at real world data on land use from 2001 to 2008.  This timeframe is significant as U.S. ethanol production more than quadrupled during this era. The researchers found that, “Empirical evidence does not support significant effects on U.S. commodity exports [and] other crops or cropland expansion in the U.S.”

"If substantial indirect land use changes were truly occurring as the result of U.S. ethanol growth, there would have been clear evidence of that during the past decade, as 2001 to 2008 was the period in which U.S. ethanol production rose dramatically," said Cooper. "As the data clearly indicates, the types of land use effects hypothesized by some crude, early analyses didn't happen."

Coinciding with the Department of Energy research,  a paper published in Environmental Science & Technology and authored by Bruce Dale and other researchers at Michigan State University, found that significantly larger volumes of biofuels can be produced without incurring ILUC. “Using less than 30% of total U.S. cropland, pasture, and range, 400 billion liters (106 billion gallons) of ethanol can be produced annually without decreasing domestic food production or agricultural exports. This approach also reduces U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 670 Tg CO2-equivalent per year, or over 10% of total U.S. annual emissions, while increasing soil fertility and promoting biodiversity. Thus we can replace a large fraction of U.S. petroleum consumption without indirect land use change.”

These reports come on the heels of a summer report from Purdue University that showed early estimates of the ILUC penalty for corn-based ethanol were greatly over stated.