Biofuels Induced Land Use Change Emissions: The Role of Implemented Land Use Emission Factors

Taheripour, Farzad; Mueller, Steffen; Emery, Isaac; Karami, Omid; Sajedinia, Ehsanreza; Zhuang, Qianlai; Wang, Michael

doi:10.3390/su16072729

Biofuels Induced Land Use Change Emissions: The Role of Implemented Land Use Emission Factors

Journal Article · Tue Mar 26 00:00:00 EDT 2024 · Sustainability (Basel)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.3390/su16072729· OSTI ID:2563551

^[1]; ^[2]; Emery, Isaac ^[3]; Karami, Omid ^[1]; Sajedinia, Ehsanreza ^[1]; ^[1]; Wang, Michael ^[4]

Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN (United States)
University of Illinois, Chicago, IL (United States)
WSP USA, Inc., Seattle, WA (United States)
Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)

Biofuels’ induced land-use change (ILUC) emissions have been widely studied over the past 15 years. Many studies have addressed uncertainties associated with these estimates. These studies have broadly examined uncertainties associated with the choice of economic models, their assumptions and parameters, and a few bio-physical variables. However, uncertainties in land-use emission factors that represent the soil and vegetation carbon contents of various land types across the world and are used to estimate carbon fluxes due to land conversions are mostly overlooked. This paper calls attention to this important omission. It highlights some important sources of uncertainty in land-use emissions factors, explores the range in these factors from established data sources, and compares the influence of their variability on ILUC emissions for several sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) pathways. The estimated land-use changes for each pathway are taken from a well-known computable general equilibrium model, GTAP-BIO. Two well-known carbon calculator models (CCLUB and AEZ-EF) that represent two different sets of emissions factors are used to convert the GTAP-BIO estimated land-use changes to ILUC emissions. The results show that the calculated ILUC emissions obtained from these carbon calculators for each examined SAF pathway are largely different, even for the same amortization time horizon. For example, the ILUC emissions values obtained from the AEZ-EF and CCLUB models for producing jet fuel from corn ethanol for a 25-year amortization period are 24.9 gCO₂e/MJ and 15.96 gCO₂e/MJ, respectively. This represents a 60% difference between the results of these two carbon calculators for the same set of land-use changes. The results show larger differences for other pathways as well.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: Federal Aviation Administration; US Department of Transportation

Grant/Contract Number:: AC02-06CH11357

OSTI ID:: 2563551

Journal Information:: Sustainability (Basel), Journal Name: Sustainability (Basel) Journal Issue: 7 Vol. 16; ISSN 2071-1050

Publisher:: MDPICopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

References (27)

DAYCENT and its land surface submodel: description and testing Parton, William J.; Hartman, Melannie; Ojima, Dennis Global and Planetary Change, Vol. 19, Issue 1-4 https://doi.org/10.1016/S0921-8181(98)00040-X	journal	December 1998
Biofuels and their by-products: Global economic and environmental implications Taheripour, Farzad; Hertel, Thomas W.; Tyner, Wallace E. Biomass and Bioenergy, Vol. 34, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biombioe.2009.10.017	journal	March 2010
Life cycle energy and greenhouse gas emission effects of biodiesel in the United States with induced land use change impacts Chen, Rui; Qin, Zhangcai; Han, Jeongwoo Bioresource Technology, Vol. 251 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biortech.2017.12.031	journal	March 2018
Carbon emissions and the drivers of deforestation and forest degradation in the tropics Houghton, R. A. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, Vol. 4, Issue 6 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2012.06.006	journal	December 2012
Harmonized soil property values for broad-scale modelling (WISE30sec) with estimates of global soil carbon stocks Batjes, N. H. Geoderma, Vol. 269 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoderma.2016.01.034	journal	May 2016
Review of modifications to indirect land use change modeling and resulting carbon intensity values within the California Low Carbon Fuel Standard regulations Leland, Amber; Hoekman, S. Kent; Liu, Xiaowei (Vivian) Journal of Cleaner Production, Vol. 180 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.01.077	journal	April 2018
Shifting patterns of oil palm driven deforestation in Indonesia and implications for zero-deforestation commitments Austin, K. G.; Mosnier, A.; Pirker, J. Land Use Policy, Vol. 69 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2017.08.036	journal	December 2017
Estimating induced land use change emissions for sustainable aviation biofuel pathways Zhao, Xin; Taheripour, Farzad; Malina, Robert Science of The Total Environment, Vol. 779 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.146238	journal	July 2021
Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Biofuels’ Indirect Land Use Change Are Uncertain but May Be Much Greater than Previously Estimated Plevin, Richard J.; Jones, Andrew D.; Torn, Margaret S. Environmental Science & Technology, Vol. 44, Issue 21 https://doi.org/10.1021/es101946t	journal	November 2010
Carbon Accounting and Economic Model Uncertainty of Emissions from Biofuels-Induced Land Use Change Plevin, Richard J.; Beckman, Jayson; Golub, Alla A. Environmental Science & Technology, Vol. 49, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1021/es505481d	journal	February 2015
Carbon balance of the terrestrial biosphere in the Twentieth Century: Analyses of CO ₂ , climate and land use effects with four process-based ecosystem models McGuire, A. D.; Sitch, S.; Clein, J. S. Global Biogeochemical Cycles, Vol. 15, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1029/2000GB001298	journal	March 2001
Modeling the effects of two different land cover change data sets on the carbon stocks of plants and soils in concert with CO ₂ and climate change : EFFECTS OF TWO DIFFERENT LAND COVER CHANGE DATA SETS Jain, Atul K.; Yang, Xiaojuan Global Biogeochemical Cycles, Vol. 19, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1029/2004GB002349	journal	May 2005
Observations and modeling of biomass and soil organic matter dynamics for the grassland biome worldwide Parton, W. J.; Scurlock, J. M. O.; Ojima, D. S. Global Biogeochemical Cycles, Vol. 7, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1029/93GB02042	journal	December 1993
The potential land requirements and related land use change emissions of solar energy van de Ven, Dirk-Jan; Capellan-Peréz, Iñigo; Arto, Iñaki Scientific Reports, Vol. 11, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-82042-5	journal	February 2021
Benchmark map of forest carbon stocks in tropical regions across three continents Saatchi, S. S.; Harris, N. L.; Brown, S. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 108, Issue 24 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1019576108	journal	May 2011
Monitoring and estimating tropical forest carbon stocks: making REDD a reality Gibbs, Holly K.; Brown, Sandra; Niles, John O. Environmental Research Letters, Vol. 2, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/2/4/045023	journal	October 2007
Impact of climate change on grassland production and soil carbon worldwide Parton, W. J.; Scurlock, J. M. O.; Ojima, D. S. Global Change Biology, Vol. 1, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2486.1995.tb00002.x	journal	February 1995
Implications of biofuels mandates for the global livestock industry: a computable general equilibrium analysis Taheripour, Farzad; Hertel, Thomas W.; Tyner, Wallace E. Agricultural Economics, Vol. 42, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1574-0862.2010.00517.x	journal	November 2010
Induced Land Use Emissions due to First and Second Generation Biofuels and Uncertainty in Land Use Emission Factors Taheripour, Farzad; Tyner, Wallace E. Economics Research International, Vol. 2013 https://doi.org/10.1155/2013/315787	journal	January 2013
Biofuels, cropland expansion, and the extensive margin Taheripour, Farzad; Zhuang, Qianlai; Tyner, Wallace E. Energy, Sustainability and Society, Vol. 2, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1186/2192-0567-2-25	journal	December 2012
The impact of considering land intensification and updated data on biofuels land use change and emissions estimates Taheripour, Farzad; Zhao, Xin; Tyner, Wallace E. Biotechnology for Biofuels, Vol. 10, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1186/s13068-017-0877-y	journal	July 2017
Effects of US Maize Ethanol on Global Land Use and Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Estimating Market-mediated Responses Hertel, Thomas W.; Golub, Alla A.; Jones, Andrew D. BioScience, Vol. 60, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1525/bio.2010.60.3.8	journal	March 2010
New Estimates of Soil and Biomass Carbon Stocks for Global Economic Models Gibbs, Holly; Yui, Sahoko; Plevin, Richard https://doi.org/10.21642/GTAP.TP33	report	March 2014
GCAM 3.0 Agriculture and Land Use: Data Sources and Methods Kyle, G. Page; Luckow, Patrick; Calvin, Katherine V. https://doi.org/10.2172/1036082	report	December 2011
Biofuels and Land Use Change: Applying Recent Evidence to Model Estimates Taheripour, Farzad; Tyner, Wallace Applied Sciences, Vol. 3, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.3390/app3010014	journal	January 2013
Carbon cycling in extratropical terrestrial ecosystems of the Northern Hemisphere during the 20th century: a modeling analysis of the influences of soil thermal dynamics Zhuang, Q.; McGuire, A. D.; Melillo, J. M. Tellus B: Chemical and Physical Meteorology, Vol. 55, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.3402/tellusb.v55i3.16368	journal	December 2011
Effects of ozone on net primary production and carbon sequestration in the conterminous United States using a biogeochemistry model Felzer, B.; Kicklighter, D.; Melillo, J. Tellus B: Chemical and Physical Meteorology, Vol. 56, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.3402/tellusb.v56i3.16415	journal	January 2004