An investigation by activist groups Mighty Earth and ActionAid USA challenges the notion of biodiesel as the environmentally responsible fuel of the future. Burned: Deception, Deforestation and America’s Biodiesel Policy claims that growing demand for biodiesel in the U.S. contributes to a host of problems, from deforestation in Argentina and Indonesia to algae blooms in Lake Erie and the Gulf of Mexico’s dead zone. The report says that, contrary to the hype, biofuels have no greenhouse-gas-emissions benefits, and can actually be worse in this regard than the oil they seek to replace.
“This isn’t the used cooking oil biodiesel powering Willie Nelson’s tour bus,” said Rose Garr, policy director at Mighty Earth. “The RFS [Renewable Fuel Standard] was intended to clean up our transportation sector, but instead it’s subsidizing fuels that are even dirtier than oil.”
The report was based on government and trade databases, agricultural production reports, and satellite maps, as well as on-the-ground reporting in Argentina’s Gran Chaco, “the lowland forest that is known as South America’s second ‘green lung’ — the first lung being the great Amazon rainforest.”
The United States imports more biodiesel from Argentina than any other country. In 2016, according to the report, “[t]wo of every three imported gallons originated in Argentina, a total of 443 million gallons, accounting for about one-fifth of all biodiesel consumed domestically under the RFS that year. Producing this amount of biodiesel requires 5.3 million acres of monoculture soybean plantations, an area the size of New Hampshire.”