Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions from Land-Use Change

By T. Searchinger, R. Heimlich, Richard A. Houghton, Fengxia Dong, A. Elobeid, Jacinto F. Fabiosa, S. Tokgoz, Dermot J. Hayes, Hun-Hsiang Yu. Science, 2008

4,550 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Subfields: Agronomy and Crop Science, Biomedical Engineering, Mechanics of Materials

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/3f2cf29728c95ff0d8eae55d1e3f3e54d5ebae15

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In Agronomy and Crop Science

In Biomedical Engineering

Citations in the corpus

Sustainable biochar to mitigate global climate change (2010, neutral): “We therefore assume that no land clearance will be used to provide biomass feedstock, nor do we include conversion of agricultural land from food to biomass-crop production as a sustainable source of feedstock, both because of the negative consequences for food security and because it may indirectly”
The Impact of Land-Use Change on Ecosystem Services, Biodiversity and Returns to Landowners: A Case Study in the State of Minnesota (2011, neutral): “Work along these lines has advanced recently with interest in the effects of biofuels on land use, carbon sequestration, energy and food prices (e.g., Keeney and Hertel 2009; Searchinger et al. 2008).”
Bioenergy in energy transformation and climate management (2014, neutral): “…that bioenergy is valuable with the more narrowly focused indirect land-use and lifecycle analysis emissions discussion estimating reduced net emissions benefits, and potentially increased net emissions, with increased use of bioenergy (e.g., Searchinger et al. 2008; Hertel et al. 2010).”
The Agricultural Ethics of Biofuels: The Food vs. Fuel Debate (2012, neutral): “A series of influential scientific papers on the life-cycle effects of maize-based ethanol production did substantial damage to the environmental reputation of biofuels between 2006 and 2008 [26–28].”
The impacts of biofuel targets on land-use change and food supply: a global CGE assessment (2010, neutral): “Yield assumptions have been contentious in the biofuel literature because of their implications for land expansion (Searchinger et al., 2008; and Keeney and Hertel, 2008).”
Critical aspects in the life cycle assessment (LCA) of bio-based materials – Reviewing methodologies and deriving recommendations (2013, neutral): “Other secondary effects include the intensification of existing agriculture or a reduction in actual food production (Searchinger et al., 2008; Tipper et al., 2009; Hertel et al., 2010).”
Agricultural greenhouse gas mitigation potential globally, in Europe and in the UK: what have we learnt in the last 20 years? (2012, neutral): “Widespread use of agricultural land for biomass production may compete with other land uses and have other environmental impacts (Searchinger et al., 2008; Smith et al., 2010a).”
The role of negative CO2 emissions for reaching 2 °C—insights from integrated assessment modelling (2013, neutral): “…for some transport modes like aviation and freight transport reduction potential seems to be currently limited to energy efficiency and the use of bio-energy (Riahi et al. 2012), while bio-energy use is likely to generate at least someGHG emissions (Searchinger et al. 2008; Smeets et al. 2009).”
The Social Costs and Benefits of Biofuels: The Intersection of Environmental, Energy and Agricultural Policy (2010, neutral): “But this strategy backfired because LCA is inherently flawed, which is first highlighted in the Searchinger et al. (2008) study showing that U.S. corn-ethanol emits more GHGs relative to gasoline if changes in the use of land (e.g., converting forest into crop land), called indirect land use change…”
Effects of land urbanization and land finance on carbon emissions: A panel data analysis for Chinese provinces (2017, neutral): “Land use and cover change (LUCC) caused by land (landscape) urbanization and construction can lead to an increase in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions (Edmonds et al., 2003; Searchinger et al., 2008; Wise et al., 2015).”
Beyond biofuels: assessing global land use for domestic consumption of biomass: a conceptual and empirical contribution to sustainable management of global resources. (2012, neutral): “As a consequence, there has been a growing number of analysis and debate on how to quantify and assess the direct and indirect land use change induced by biofuels (e.g. Searchinger et al., 2008; Ravindranath et al., 2009; Al-Riffai et al., 2010; Hiederer et al., 2010).”