Biofuels feedstocks are highly diverse in their input requirements, alternative uses and climatic requirements and are grown in many different contexts globally. LCAs of different biofuel crops reveal large differences in yields, climatic requirements, energy balances, and water and carbon footprints. This review will focus on the production of agricultural crops or feedstocks suitable for bioethanol and biodiesel production because these compete with land, energy and water use for food production.
As it pertains specifically to biofuels, an ILUC impact may be triggered when an increase in the demand for a crop-based biofuel begins to drive up prices for the necessary feedstock crop. This price increase causes farmers to devote a larger proportion of their cultivated acreage to that feedstock crop. Supplies of the displaced food and feed commodities subsequently decline, leading to higher prices for those commodities. In the past, many farmers have brought non-agricultural lands into production as a low-cost, high-benefit option to take advantage of higher commodity prices. These land use conversions release the carbon sequestered in soils and vegetation. The land use conversions may also lead to a loss of ecosystem functions (e.g. biodiversity loss).
Based on the work done to date, and in particular the last two to three years, crop-based biofuels may contribute to some ILUC impacts. It is not clear what the magnitude of the impact actually is due to the complexity of the issues involved in assessing LUC generally and ILUC specifically.
The tools for estimating and analysing ILUC impacts from biofuels are few and relatively new. And, the ranges of analyses conducted have produced varying results that are dependent on the assumptions used.
This paper is structured to address in brief the following topics:
Land use implications of increased biofuel production
Biofuels feedstock LCAs, energy balance and carbon footprint: how it relates to ILUC
Additional environmental impacts related to ILUC
Examples of select biofuels ILUC studies
Regulatory and legislative actions undertaken to control ILUC from biofuels
Other legislative and regulatory approaches that address ILUC
ILUC and the emerging global biofuels market
The review concludes with some recommendations for next steps. These recommendations include more experimentation and modelling, which is already occurring; the establishment of standard methodologies to evaluate LUC from biofuels; quantifying available marginal land; and, establishing effective land use management and best agriculture practice policies for biofuels feedstock crops.

By: Hart Energy Consulting - CABI

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