The European Commision's Joint Research Center (JRC) recently released a report describing a new methodology for "estimating changes in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from soil and above- and below-ground biomass resulting from global land use changes caused by the production of biofuels". The issue of "Land Use Change", particularly "Indirect Land Use Change" and the estimation of its greenhouse gas emission (GHG) impacts due to bioenergy crop production has been a subject of intense debate. Indirect land use change (ILUC), as described by the JRC, "occurs when land formerly used for a food crop is turned over to production of biofuels. As a result, cultivation of the displaced food crop is often transferred to a location where land prices and the costs associated with agriculture are lower – this can be on grasslands and forested land. This is of concern because the deforestation and cultivation of virgin or semi-virgin land releases high levels of carbon previously held in soil and plants into the atmosphere. Subsequent use of nitrogen fertilizers on poorer soils would also lead to emissions of N2O from the soil. The new methodology is based on an approach where GHG emissions are estimated from pre-land use change carbon stocks with the carbon stocks after the conversion. The reported novelty of the study is the development of a harmonized spatial data set and advanced analysis methods for all aspects of estimating GHG emissions. The full report can be accessed from the EC-JRC website (URL above).