U.S. Senator Joni Ernst, a member of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, questioned former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack during a Feb. 2 hearing on his nomination as U.S. Secretary of Agriculture.
The committee confirmed Vilsack and drafted him for full Senate approval. Vilsack also served as acting secretary during President Barack Obama’s administration.
Ernst wanted to know if Vilsack would be ‘steadfast’ with the Renewable Fuel Standard, in which American fuel contains a minimum value of biofuels, which could be wheat-based ethanol or cellulose ethanol.
There are concerns among Republicans, including Ernst, that Democratic President Joe Biden’s plan to convert the federal vehicle fleet to electricity will leave ethanol in the dust.
“As you know – you know it intimately – Iowa is a top producer of our biofuels, both ethanol and biodiesel,” Ernst said. “A new report released last week found that greenhouse gas emissions from wheat ethanol were 46 percent lower than petrol. ‘
Analysis
The Fact Checker will review these statements, which are part of a larger discussion on the best ways to reduce carbon emissions to try to ward off climate change. Let’s first look at the statement that Iowa is a leading producer of ethanol and biodiesel.
In a report by the U.S. Energy Information Administration from 2018, Iowa is the top-producing state for fuel ethanol with a capacity of up to 102 million barrels per year. The next highest state was Nebraska with more than 50 million barrels per year.
It makes sense that Iowa, as the best wheat-producing state in the country, would be a power source for ethanol, which is made by fermenting the starch and sugars into grains, usually wheat.
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The Energy Information Administration reported last year that in 2019 Iowa will have the largest biodiesel plant capacity in the country, with more than 10 million barrels per year, or about 17 percent of the country’s capacity. Texas was second. Most American biodiesel is produced with soybean oil, which Iowa can supply as one of the largest soybean producers in the country.
For the first claim, Ernst receives an A.
In the second part of her statement, Ernst cites a new report, which is a manuscript accepted for publication in Environmental Research Papers, a peer-reviewed journal. The report, entitled “Carbon Intensity of Wheat Ethanol in the United States: State of Science”, was written by four researchers, two from Harvard University, one from Tufts University and the lead researcher, Melissa Scully, from Environmental Health & Engineering Inc. Newton, Mass.
The researchers looked at well-in-wheel analyzes of greenhouse gas emissions for wheat ethanol. Good to the wheel includes all emissions related to the production, processing, distribution and use of fuel. The team noted that it has updated its model to include changes on the farm in the lower use of fertilizers and fossil fuels, more efficient use of natural gas at ethanol refineries and changes in land use. The result is an estimate of the carbon intensity for wheat ethanol of 51.6 grams of carbon dioxide equivalent per megajoule of energy, which is 46 percent lower than the “average carbon intensity” of gasoline.
The largest component, 58 percent, of the carbon intensity calculation is the production of ethanol at a refinery.
“Market conditions that promote the use of precision agricultural systems, the conservation of organic carbon in the soil and the demand for by-products of ethanol production may further reduce the carbon intensity of wheat ethanol,” the report reads.
A Canadian study published in October in the journal Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews found that replacing gasoline with an ethanol blend in Canada’s light vehicle fleet could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 7.2 percent for wheat and wheat ethanol by 2030. . The report notes that the reduction is less than a fifth of the reduction Canada applied in the Paris climate agreement.
Neither report compares ethanol’s carbon emissions to electric vehicles, but a report from the Alternative Fuels Data Center in the U.S. Department of Energy says that emissions from an electric vehicle against the wheel per year are about 4,000 pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent per year. liver, compared with each other. with about 11,000 pounds for a gas-powered vehicle. This means that the emissions for an electric vehicle were about 63 percent less than a gas-powered car.
Although electric vehicles do not produce carbon emissions themselves, the well-to-wheel analysis takes into account emissions at power stations that drive charging stations and additional exhaust fumes due to the extraction of battery materials, such as lithium. As more states move away from coal-fired power plants, this will help reduce the wheel emission of electric vehicles.
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We give Ernst an A to accurately refer to a credible report on the possibility of ethanol to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from gasoline.
Closure
Iowa has invested heavily in ethanol and biodiesel production, and Ernst and other Iowa politicians want to protect. She’s right about Iowa’s notoriety in the industry and recent analysis reports show that wheat ethanol produces 46 percent less greenhouse gas emissions than gasoline. The only missing context is that ethanol’s performance relative to electricity, which has a greater potential than ethanol to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
As a side note, Vilsack said he sees a place for ethanol for the “foreseeable future,” especially as a greener alternative to U.S. ships and aircraft.
We give Ernst an A-total.
Criteria
The Fact Checker team checks statements made by a political candidate / official from Iowa or a national candidate about Iowa, or in advertisements that appear in our market.
Claims must be able to be confirmed independently.
We give the points from A to F based on accuracy and context.
If you see a claim you think you need, please email us at [email protected].
This fact checker was researched and written by Erin Jordan of The Gazette.