New Study Finds Less Land Use Change for Biofuels

A new study in the United States evaluating land use changes for several biofuel feedstocks and policies in the European Union has projected much lower estimates.

Land-use change occurs when land is converted to biofuel feedstock production from other uses. Some researchers have raised concerns as to whether land use conversions from other uses (for example, pasture or forest) actually reduced the biofuel greenhouse gas benefit. Thus, some land use change analyses resulted in lower biofuel targets in 2020.

The results of the new study Land Use Change Greenhouse Gas emissions of European Biofuel Policies Utilizing the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP), which employed an updated version of the GTAP model, showed that less land would be converted for EU biofuels production. The reductions in cropland for the different biodiesel feedstocks ranged from 18 to 70 percent less compared with a previous study.

The study found that biodiesel could account for only 2.33 g CO2eq/MJ, compared to 55 g CO2eq/MJ used in the EU proposal amending its biofuels policy. The difference was attributed to improved understanding as regards land use, crop yields and forest use in the EU, Canada and the US.