B.C.'s ethanol standards for gasoline a mistake: scientists
Last Updated: Tuesday, September 23, 2008 | 5:35 PM ET
CBC News
B.C. is taking the wrong approach by mandating that gasoline sold in the province contain five per cent ethanol by 2010, according to some scientific experts.
The province says the renewable fuel standard passed last spring will help cut greenhouse gas emissions by replacing five per cent of fossil fuels with renewable fuels. The federal government has a similar ethanol standard.
Under the law, gasoline sold in B.C. will be blended with ethanol from food crops such as U.S. corn, Canadian wheat and Brazilian sugar cane, according to the B.C. Ministry of Energy.
The law will also require diesel fuel to contain five per cent biodiesel by 2010, which B.C. expects will come from U.S. soy, Canadian canola and some used cooking oil.
All ethanol not the same
But Dan Kammen, director of the renewable and appropriate energy lab at the University of California, Berkeley, says many types of ethanol available today don't reduce greenhouse gases and B.C. shouldn't try to pick one fuel as a winner.
"Not every flavour of ethanol is good for the environment. Quite a few of them are not," said Kammen.
A better approach would be to stick to the low carbon fuel standard that B.C. and California have both adopted, said Kammen.
"That says that by 2020 our fuels have to be at least 10 per cent de-carbonized, or less carbon content per gallon or per litre," he said.
Hadi Dowlatabadi, the Canada research chair in global change at UBC, agrees, saying using ethanol could defeat the purpose of the fuel standard.
"If I was the public policy decision maker I would not have supported ethanol," he said.
According to Dowlatabadi, when crops like corn or wheat are used to make fuel, it's likely land will be cleared somewhere else to meet the demand for food.
"There's quite a lot of emissions associated with that land clearing activity and that needs to be counted as part of that life cycle analysis," he said. "Government analyses right now … don't include that."
Dowlatabadi said other biofuels, like biodiesel, can lead to significant greenhouse gas reductions. But he considers ethanol's costs so uncertain, they cancel out its marginal benefit.
"We will be adding a lot of essentially zero-effect greenhouse gas reductions into our ethanol petroleum blend," he said.
According to Kammen, the move toward including ethanol in fuel, seen across North America, has more to do with subsidizing farmers than reducing greenhouse gases.
"In fact, the main reason we're doing it now is because we very heavily subsidize its production — a subsidy that was designed to support farmers, not to give us a clean energy supply," he said.
"Just picking a product that you happen to like because there was some political dealmaking, that's actually not environmentally responsible," he said.
Minister says ethanol will help farmers and environment
But B.C. Energy Minister Richard Neufeld is defending the ethanol requirement, saying it will help B.C. farmers while lowering greenhouse gases. Currently the biggest source of ethanol in North America is U.S. corn, but B.C. farmers will also contribute.
"We've got some farmers where I come from that are having a heck of a time making ends meet. There's a lot of land in northeastern B.C. that's gone back to trees, or not even to trees, but to grassland, because they can't make a living selling into the food market," said Neufeld.
"We need to actually diversify that for them a bit, so they can actually stay on the farm, and encourage younger people to get into the agricultural industry, so that's one part of it," said Neufeld.
Neufeld said he would consider changing the law if he was convinced ethanol didn't have a greenhouse gas benefit over gasoline, but for now he says the evidence indicates the program is a step in the right direction.
"The scientists have convinced us that doing ethanol and biodiesel will reduce greenhouse gases," said Neufeld.
