Bright Future Seen for Biofuels in Bay Watershed

Andrew Jenner
Virginia Correspondent

The production of advanced biofuels feedstocks — perennial grasses, fast-growing trees and other crops — in the mid-Atlantic region could significantly benefit farmers and Chesapeake Bay water quality, according to a report just released by the Chesapeake Bay Commission and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

The report estimates the bay watershed could produce 500 million gallons of biofuels per year without diminishing regional food production, thereby creating new economic opportunities for farmers while lessening the country’s dependence on fossil fuels. If proper best management practices are used when growing advanced feedstocks, the report continues, the agricultural sector could reduce its nutrient runoff into the Chesapeake Bay by millions of pounds per year.

(“Advanced” or “next generation” biofuels are those produced from non-food crops, such as switchgrass, or food crop residues; “feedstocks” is a general term for any material used to produce biofuels.)

“This is exciting news … this report holds many, many promising things for our agricultural community,” said Maryland State Senator Thomas “Mac” Middleton, speaking at a press teleconference held last week to mark the report’s release.

The report also projects the regional development of an advanced biofuels industry could create more than 18,000 jobs by 2022. It was prepared over the past year by an advisory panel comprised of elected officials, academics, farm and biofuels industry representatives and representatives of state and federal agencies.

Advisory panel member Tom Richard, the director of the Penn State Institutes of Energy and the Environment, emphasized the report’s focus on avoiding conflicts between food and fuel production when estimating the region’s potential for biofuels production.

Citing data from USDA, the report finds that the bay watershed contains more than eight million acres of idle farmland not currently in use as cropland or pasture. This acreage, according to the report, could be used to grow feedstocks without competing with regional food production. In addition, Richard said the watershed contains about 3.5 million acres of corn, grain and soybean fields that are not planted with winter cover crops. Feedstocks planted as cover crops in these fields would give farmers new sources of income and improve these farms’ conservation practices, Richard said. Byproducts from timber harvesting also could become a significant raw material for a regional biofuels industry, according to the report.

After calculating land areas devoted to various uses in the watershed, identifying which ones could be sustainably used for feedstock production and factoring in yield projections, the advisory panel also considered likely participation rates by landowners in different areas. The report then arrived at the estimate that the bay watershed could grow enough biomass to produce 500 million gallons – roughly equivalent to a six-week supply of gasoline for the Washington, D.C. metro area – of liquid biofuels annually.

“It’s a bold goal, but we still consider it a very conservative goal,” said Andrew Smith, a senior assistant director of governmental relations with the Virginia Farm Bureau Federation, and a member of the advisory panel that worked on the report.

Smith also emphasized that converting idle land to biofuels production would be one of the best ways to protect farmland from development.

The report includes a series of policy recommendations for the states within the watershed designed to facilitate the development of the biofuels industry.

These recommendations include the development of harvest standards to protect both the economic viability and environmental sustainability of feedstock production, and the creation of a plan to prevent introduction of destructive invasive species as farmers begin producing a variety of advanced feedstocks.

“The key to all of this … is the states need to attract those processors who will process the crops into fuel,” Smith said.

Speaking during the teleconference, Richard said no commercial refining capacity now exists in the region; he said the state governments will have to play a role in attracting industrial processing facilities and creating a regional market for advanced feedstocks. Once such market exists, he continued, it will provide an additional private incentive to public cost-share programs for farmers to implement conservation practices that include feedstocks production.

Richard also noted that the development of an advanced biofuels industry in the region will likely begin with small-scale heat and electricity production using a variety of feedstocks. Eventually, once sufficient production and refining capacity exists, the region could produce the 500 million gallons of liquid biofuels each year.

While noting a number of challenges standing in the way of a thriving biofuels industry in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, the report presents an upbeat and enthusiastic assessment of advanced feedstocks’ potential layered benefits for the region.

“Next-generation biofuels present tremendous potential for economic and environmental improvement, if developed in a thoughtful, sustainable and regionally collaborative manner,” the report concludes.