Biomass ever unsustainable?

  By | | bioenergy, sustainability

A recent post on a biofuel listserv asked, “For us great unwashed masses – what is the definition of “unsustainable biomass”, exactly?” It’s a perfectly reasonable question: I’ll take a swing, but it’s not simple.

First we have to define “sustainable,” a famously slippery term. Wikipedia currently offers this, “For humans, sustainability is the potential for long-term maintenance of well being, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions.” The dimensions are all kind of stretchy, as we will see.

Now, what is biomass? Biomass is generally plant material, formed at some point in the relatively recent past. Basically solid (or liquid) solar energy that can be used to make biofuels. Fossil fuels are ancient solar energy too, but with the disadvantage that the carbon dioxide that’s released when fossil fuels are burned hasn’t been in the atmosphere for millions of years — causing an increase in the carbon dioxide levels in our modern atmosphere. Biofuels have the potential to be nearly carbon neutral: clearly biofuels can be better than fossil fuels, from a global climate change perspective.

So it might be natural to think that, since it is basically solar energy, biomass energy has no downside.

What could ever be wrong with biomass use for fuel? Lots of things, it turns out. Don’t get me wrong: I’m a biofuel guy. I’ve been making and selling biofuels, and thinking and writing about biofuels for years. But there’s a lot of irrational exuberance around biofuels these days. A quick answer to the question of what constitutes unsustainable biomass: it depends on how much you like driving and flying, but generally it would be unsustainable to use most biomass (forests, food crops, the trees that line your street) for fuel.

About Steve

Steve Verhey, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Cascadia Carbon Institute (CCI). CCI is a nonprofit think tank dedicated to educating policymakers, agriculturalists, industry, and the public about sustainability, agriculture, renewable energy, and global climate change. Dr. Verhey has been involved in sustainable agriculture and energy issues for over 20 years. Trained as an agricultural scientist, he received his Ph.D in plant molecular biology and biochemistry from Oregon State University and his M.S. in Botany from the University of Washington. He recieved his B.A. in Biology from Reed College. He has served as a consultant for a variety of national and international renewable energy projects for companies such as Boston Consulting Group, HSBC, Portland General Electric, Algenol, Harvest Partners, Biofields SAPI de CV, Guggenheim Partners, Viking Global Investors, and Bank of America-Merrill Lynch. He is co-founder and Chief Managing Manager of Central Washington Biodiesel LLC, a rationally sized biodiesel startup, and served as Chief Science Officer for Bioalgene, an algae-to-fuel startup.
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2 Responses to Biomass ever unsustainable?

  1. Carol Pierson Holding says:
    June 25, 2011 at 8:51 pm

    I’ve heard both sides you present, that biomass is sustainable and unsustainable, and I’m glad you’re tackling this for us “great unwashed”!! and what do you think about the editorial in the NY Times today about the unsustainability of ethanol from corn? How could policy makers have gotten it so wrong, or is the writer mixed up?

    • Steve Verhey says:
      July 13, 2011 at 12:57 pm

      Thanks for the comment/questions. Briefly, it depends on scale, and a little on priorities. A gallon of fuel contains about 30,000 Calories (big C, dietary calories) — that’s a lot of energy that, in some cases, really could be going to food or feed. We need to ask ourselves how important driving and flying are to us.