The Price of Ignoring Climate Change Is Rising; Reducing Petroleum Dependence Is Part of Solution

Greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations in the atmosphere are continuing to rise, and the world’s leading GHG-emitting countries are falling well behind the pace of emission reductions that is needed to avoid harmful climate change. Meanwhile, U.S. consumers are ending a year in which gasoline prices soared again. Reducing petroleum dependence with low-carbon biofuels can be an important part of the solution for both the climate and consumers. Fortunately, advanced, low-carbon, low-cost biofuels are moving closer to market.

In a report released in the lead-up to this week’s international climate conference in Doha, Qatar, the UN Environment Program (UNEP) finds that the world’s leading GHG-emitting countries are falling well behind the pace of emission reductions needed to avoid harmful climate change in the decades ahead. As a consequence of the delay, the cost of preventing dangerous climate change is rapidly rising. Much more will need to be done to reduce emissions from a higher level, in a much shorter amount of time, with much greater economic and social costs.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) announced last week that GHG concentrations in the atmosphere rose to a new record in 2011. In a statement released November 20 , the WMO said, " Between 1990 and 2011 there was a 30% increase in radiative forcing – the warming effect on our climate – because of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other heat-trapping long-lived gases. Since the start of the industrial era in 1750, about 375 billion tonnes of carbon have been released into the atmosphere as CO2, primarily from fossil fuel combustion. . . ‘These billions of tonnes of additional carbon dioxide in our atmosphere will remain there for centuries, causing our planet to warm further and impacting on all aspects of life on earth,’ said WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud. ‘Future emissions will only compound the situation.’ "

From Iowa, more than 200 scientists said advancing climate change is already making conditions tough for agriculture. Iowa has suffered from both extreme flooding and extreme heat and drought in 2011 and 2012, respectively. They say action is needed urgently – both to prevent climate change from getting worse and to adapt to it.

The petroleum-dependent transportation sector is a key part of the problem. The UNEP report estimates that the global transportation sector could make 1.5 to 2.5 gigatonnes of additional CO2 equivalent emissions reductions by 2020. These would be needed to help get the world back on track toward keeping average global warming below the two degree (C) increase threshold.

Petroleum dependence is not just a climate problem; it is also a big economic problem for U.S. consumers. EIA data shows that in 2012, as in 2011, household incomes were stretched again by oil and gasoline price spikes. A recent NRDC report finds that consumers are continuing to pay a high price for petroleum dependence, and in some states much more than in others. The report documents in which states consumers pay the highest portions of their income for transportation fuel and which states are doing the most to reduce petroleum dependence.

Expanding and improving public and alternative transit systems; creating smarter urban designs and traffic management systems; setting higher fuel economy standards; switching fleets to electric and hybrid vehicles; and charging higher fuel taxes and highway tolls can help reduce petroleum consumption. Advanced, low-carbon biofuels can help, too.

Corn ethanol has helped begin moving the U.S. away from oil dependence, but much more needs to be done to further reduce the resource-intensity, carbon footprint, and other environmental impacts of corn and corn ethanol production. We need to do corn better and do better than corn.

Next generation advanced biofuels, using cellulosic and other low-input feedstocks, offer hope for dramatically reducing the greenhouse gas-intensity of transportation fuels. The good news is that these advanced biofuels are no longer five or ten years in the distant future. In a recent article , Biofuels Digest reported that a number of advanced biofuel producers have plants coming on line now or will have them on line soon. Two commercial scale plants are being commissioned now (INEOS BIO in Florida and KiOR in Mississippi), and others are expected to come on line by 2014 (Cool Planet Biofuels, Joule Unlimited, Incitor, SG Biofuels, Primus Green Energy, Sundrop Fuels, and Envergent). All project that they will be able to produce advanced biofuels for less than $100 per barrel when their plants are running at full capacity.

In a recent interview with Biomass Magazine , the interim head of the DOE Biomass Program, Valerie Reed, mentioned additional advanced biofuel plants coming on line by 2014: Poet LLC in Iowa and Abengoa BioEnergy in Kansas.

Further, the San Francisco Chronicle also reported recently that Propel Fuels in California has agreed to begin marketing Solazyme’s algae-based biodiesel to consumers. The fuel is a 20/80 blend of algae biodiesel and conventional diesel, sells for about the same price as 100 percent conventional petroleum diesel in California ($4.25 per gallon), and produces less air pollution than conventional diesel.