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The green grab for land

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Solar and wind farms are spreading rapidly around the world.  Many economists believe that solar power has crossed the threshold where it is generally cheaper than other ways to make electricity and will become the dominant energy source in the next couple of decades.  As a result, both solar and wind farms are gobbling up more and more land around the world.  Estimates are that they will take up around 30,000 square miles by mid-century.

One concern is whether we are entering an era of trading food for energy.  Land conflicts seem inevitable since solar power operates best in unshaded areas with gentle winds and moderate temperatures, which are the same conditions favored by many crops.

China is installing more solar farms than the rest of the world combined.  Many of these are in the Gobi Desert, where there is no competing need for the land.  But some are in eastern China, in densely populated grain-growing areas.

There are a number of strategies that reduce the impact of solar farms on land use.  One approach is to put them on old industrial or brownfield sites that are otherwise unusable.  Another is floatovoltaics:  putting solar panels on the surface of lakes and reservoirs.  And then there is agrivoltaics, where solar panels are installed above crop fields or where livestock graze between or even beneath solar arrays.  China has more than 500 agrivoltaic projects that incorporate crops, livestock, aquafarming, greenhouses, and even tea plantations.

Green energy has both environmental and economic benefits to offer, but it must conserve nature and not excessively grab land needed for people, wildlife, and ecosystems.

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‘Green Grab’: Solar and Wind Boom Sparks Conflicts on Land Use

Photo, posted May 25, 2011, courtesy of Michael Mees via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Mining with plants

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Plants absorb nutrients and minerals from the soil as they grow and incorporate them into their leaves and stems.  Such plants can be used to remove toxic elements from soil.  Cleaning soil in this way is called phytoremediation. 

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst are trying to go beyond phytoremediation and do phytomining, in which hyperaccumulated minerals from the soil can be harvested from plants for use in industrial or manufacturing applications.

One mineral that is critically needed for modern technology is nickel.  There are trace amounts of nickel in nearly one million acres of topsoil in the US, making the soil inhospitable for most crops, but the economics and environmental impact of extracting it make doing it impractical. 

A common plant, Alyssum murale, is a nickel hyperaccumulator; in fact, up to 3% of the plant’s biomass can be made up of nickel.  But the plant is slow-growing and difficult to manage and is also considered an invasive species

Another common plant, Camelina sativa, does not have the downsides associated with Alyssum and is also a rich source of valuable biofuel.  The Amherst researchers are working to determine which genes and proteins are responsible for Alyssum’s nickel hyperaccumulation and hope to genetically engineer Camelina sativa to have the same ability.

The researchers believe there is enough nickel in barren soil in the US to supply 50 years of phytomining.  It wouldn’t supply all the nickel the economy needs, but it could account for 20 to 30 percent of the projected demand.

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Scientists at UMass Amherst Engineer Plant-based Method of ‘Precious’ Mineral Mining

Photo, posted July 10, 2017, courtesy of Matt Lavin via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Saving the Great Salt Lake

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For many years, scientists have warned that the Great Salt Lake in Utah is headed toward a catastrophic decline.  While the size of the Great Salt Lake fluctuates naturally with seasonal and long-term weather patterns, the lake has been experiencing significant and steady declines for decades.  In fact, the Great Salt Lake has lost more than 15 billion cubic yards of water over the past three decades, and it’s getting shallower at the rate of four inches a year. 

This reduction is primarily due to excessive water diversions from rivers and streams that feed into the lake for agricultural, industrial, and municipal use. These diversions, combined with prolonged drought and rising temperatures due to climate change, have significantly reduced the lake’s water level. 

According to a new study led by researchers from Oregon State University, 62% of the river water bound for the Great Salt Lake is diverted for human use, with agricultural activities responsible for nearly three-quarters of that percentage.  The analysis, which was recently published in the journal Environmental Challenges, found that reducing irrigation is necessary to save the lake. 

In order to stabilize and begin refilling the lake, the research team proposes cutting human water consumption in the Great Salt Lake’s watershed by 35%.  The researchers emphasize that farmers and ranchers facing income losses from using less water would require taxpayer-funded compensation.

The Great Salt Lake is a biodiversity hotspot, sustaining more than 10 million migratory birds.  The lake also directly supports 9,000 jobs and fuels $2.5 billion in economic activity annually. 

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Reducing irrigation for livestock feed crops is needed to save Great Salt Lake, study argues

Photo, posted January 14, 2024, courtesy of Olaf Zerbock via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

An electric reactor for industry

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The industrial sector accounts for nearly a third of greenhouse gas emissions in the US, which is more than the annual emissions from cars, trucks, and airplanes combined.  These emissions primarily come from burning fossil fuels to produce goods from raw materials as well as from the chemical reactions associated with production.  Many industrial processes require very high temperatures that are not easily achieved other than by burning fossil fuels.

Researchers at Stanford University have developed and demonstrated a new kind of thermochemical reactor that can generate the huge amounts of heat required for many industrial processes that runs on electricity rather than the burning of fossil fuels.  The researchers claim that the design is also smaller, cheaper, and more efficient than the fossil fuel technology it would replace.

Standard industrial thermochemical reactors burn fossil fuel to heat a fluid that is piped into the reactor, much like the way home radiators work, albeit at far higher temperatures.  The new reactor uses magnetic induction, similar to the way that induction cooktops work.  Heat is transferred by inducing a current into materials that heat up as the current flows.

A proof-of-concept demonstration powered a chemical reaction called the reverse water gas shift reaction and resulted in more than 85% efficiency.  The reaction in question converts carbon dioxide into a valuable gas that can be used to create sustainable fuels. 

The Stanford researchers are working to scale up their new reactor technology and expand its potential applications.  They are working on designs for reactors for capturing carbon dioxide and for manufacturing cement. 

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Electric reactor could cut industrial emissions

Photo, posted October 30, 2022, courtesy of Helmut via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

A better way to produce green hydrogen

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Hydrogen has great potential as a fuel and an energy carrier for many applications.  Burning it or consuming it in fuel cells does not produce carbon emissions.  As a result, there has long been the vision for a future hydrogen economy.  Whether the hydrogen economy would ever come about given how various other technologies have evolved over time is questionable.  But regardless, hydrogen is valuable for many industrial and commercial applications including the manufacture of ammonia and the refining of metals.

Hydrogen is produced in industrial quantities from natural gas by a carbon-dioxide-producing process known as methane-steam reforming.  To take its place as a green energy source, hydrogen needs to be produced by splitting water into its constituent oxygen and hydrogen components by the process of electrolysis. 

The problem is economic.  Methane-steam reforming produces hydrogen at a cost of about $1.50 per kilogram.  Green hydrogen costs about $5 a kilogram.

Researchers at Oregon State University have developed a new photocatalyst that enables the high-speed, high-efficiency production of hydrogen.  The material, called RTTA, is a metal organic framework containing ruthenium oxide and titanium oxide.  Ruthenium oxide is expensive, but very little is needed.  For industrial applications, if the catalyst shows good stability and reproducibility, the cost of the small amount of this exotic material becomes less important.

The photocatalyst, when exposed to sunlight, quickly and efficiently splits water yielding hydrogen.  The Oregon State discovery has real potential.

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Oregon State University research uncovers better way to produce green hydrogen

Photo, posted July 7, 2023, courtesy of Bill Abbott via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Industrial heat and solar power

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Many industrial processes require extremely high temperatures, typically more than 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit.  This heat is generally produced by burning fossil fuels – either coal or natural gas – which emits large amounts of greenhouse gases. This level of heat cannot be economically produced using renewable electricity.  As a consequence, decarbonizing these industrial processes is very difficult.

Researchers at ETH Zurich in Switzerland have recently demonstrated a new method of obtaining high-temperature heat based on solar radiation.  They have engineered a device called a thermal trap.  It consists of a quartz rod coupled to a ceramic absorber that can efficiently absorb sunlight and convert it to heat.

In laboratory-scale experiments, they exposed a foot-long quartz rod to artificial light 135 times more intensive than sunlight and were able to produce temperatures as high as 1,900 degrees.  The artificial light source was needed to mimic the effects of concentrated solar energy plants that typically make use of large numbers of mirrors to direct intense solar energy onto a small area.

There are already concentrated solar power plants that operate at temperatures as high as 1,100 degrees and use the heat to operate turbines to generate electricity.  These plants lose efficiency at higher temperatures because of radiative heat losses.  The Zurich thermal trap minimizes these losses and permits higher temperature operation.

The hope is that at a large scale, the new approach may make it possible to use solar energy to decarbonize energy-intensive industrial processes.

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Using solar energy to generate heat at high temperatures

Photo courtesy of ETH Zurich / Emiliano Casati.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Solar thermochemical hydrogen

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For decades, there has been talk of the hydrogen economy in which hydrogen would take the place of fossil fuels in a wide range of domestic and industrial applications.  Over time, hydrogen’s potential advantages in some applications have diminished but it is still seen as perhaps the most promising way to decarbonize long-distance truck, ship, and plane transportation as well as many heavy-duty industrial processes.

Hydrogen is the most common element in the universe, but here on Earth, it is tightly bound up in chemical compounds, notably water and hydrocarbons.  Extracting hydrogen from these compounds takes lots of energy.  To date, most hydrogen is produced from fossil fuel sources, resulting in carbon dioxide emissions.  So-called green hydrogen is made by splitting up water into its component elements.

Getting hydrogen from water generally uses electrolysis, which requires lots of electrical power.  That is why it isn’t the standard way to produce hydrogen; it costs too much to pay for all that power.

MIT scientists have been developing a process to make solar thermochemical hydrogen, or STCH.  STCH uses the sun’s heat to split apart water and no other energy source.  An existing source of solar heat drives a thermochemical reaction in which a heated metal surface grabs oxygen from steam and leaves hydrogen behind.  MIT did not invent the concept; their efforts are to make it practical.

Previous STCH designs were only capable of using 7% of incoming solar heat to make hydrogen.  The MIT process may be able to harness up to 40% of the sun’s heat and therefore generate far more hydrogen. 

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MIT design would harness 40 percent of the sun’s heat to produce clean hydrogen fuel

Photo, posted August 23, 2017, courtesy of Evan Lovely via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Better Plastic Recycling | Earth Wise

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Many of us are careful to put our plastic trash into the appropriate recycling bins hoping that we are helping to stem the global tide of plastic waste.  But many plastics are not recyclable at all and recycling those that are is not even always a good thing.  Breaking down plastics can generate polluting microplastics that are themselves a major environmental problem.  And perhaps the biggest problem for recycling efforts is that they are not cost effective and generally incur huge losses.

Chemical engineers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison recently published a study in the journal Nature outlining a new technique for turning low-value waste plastic into high-value industrial chemicals. 

The technique makes use of two existing chemical processing techniques.  The first is pyrolysis, which is high-temperature heating in an oxygen-free environment.  Heating waste plastic in this way produces pyrolysis oil, a liquid mix of various compounds that includes large amounts of olefins.  Olefins are simple hydrocarbons that are a central building block of many chemicals and polymers.  Olefins are most often produced by energy-intensive processes like steam cracking of petroleum. 

The UW-Madison process takes the olefins and subjects them to a process called homogenous hydroformylation catalysis, which converts them into aldehydes, which can then be further reduced into important industrial chemicals. 

The payoff is that the process can take waste plastics, which are only worth about $100 a ton, and turn them into high-value chemicals worth $1,200-$6,000 a ton.  If the process can be optimized and otherwise made ready for industrial-scale use, it would be a real game-changer in the battle against plastic waste.

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New recycling process could find markets for ‘junk’ plastic waste

Photo, posted September 16, 2015, courtesy of Oregon State University via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Cleaner Water Using Corn | Earth Wise

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Corn is the largest agricultural crop in the U.S., and it is also one of the most wasteful.  About half of the harvest ends up as stover – corn stalks, leaves, husks, and cobs – once the kernels are used for food.

Corn stover has relatively few commercial or industrial uses.  It can be used to produce biofuel, but that is not very energy efficient.  It is sometimes used as a low-quality livestock feed as well.  Mostly, it is just burned if it is used at all.

Researchers at the University of California Riverside have developed an energy-efficient way to make good use of stover by transforming it into activated carbon for use in water treatment.

Activated carbon – often called activated charcoal – is an organic material that is specially treated to contain millions of microscopic pores that make it highly absorbent.  It has many industrial uses, the most common of which is for filtering pollutants out of drinking water.  Most household water filters such as Brita filters as well as the ones built into refrigerators make use of activated carbon.

The Riverside researchers explored methods for producing activated carbon from charred corn stover and found that processing the material with hot compressed water – a process known as hydrothermal carbonization – produced highly absorbent activated carbon with superior properties compared to material produced by slow pyrolysis, where corn stover is charred at increasing temperatures over a long period of time.

According to the researchers, it is important to create approaches that convert waste into high-value materials, fuels, and chemicals in order to create new value streams and eliminate the environmental harm that comes from a so-called “take-make-dispose” economic model.

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Cleaner Water Through Corn

Photo, posted September 15, 2010, courtesy of the United Soybean Board / the Soybean Checkoff via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Destroying Forever Chemicals | Earth Wise

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PFAS, short for poly and perfluoroalkyl substances, have been used in commercial products since the 1940s.  There are more than 4,000 different chemicals in the class.   Some of the most commonly used PFAS chemicals, like PFOS and PFOA, have long half-lives, which has earned them the moniker “forever chemicals.” 

These dangerous chemicals have not been manufactured in the U.S. since the early 2000s, but they can still be found in various imported goods.  PFAS chemicals have been linked to cancer, birth defects, thyroid disease, and liver damage.  These forever chemicals linger in the environment and scientists have found them in the blood of virtually all Americans.

Researchers at Rice University have recently discovered an efficient catalyst for destroying PFAS forever chemicals.  Unexpectedly, the catalyst was actually in the control group in a study they were performing.

The study, published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology Letters, found that boron nitride, acting as a light-activated catalyst, destroyed PFOA at a faster clip than any previously reported photocatalyst.

The catalyst, boron nitride powder, is a commercially available synthetic mineral that is widely used in makeup, skincare products, thermal pastes for cooling computer chips, and various other industrial products.  The discovery began with dozens of failed experiments on a variety of more promising PFAS catalysts.  But along the way, they found that the boron nitride control material repeatedly yielded positive results.

The research has already attracted the attention of industrial partners seeking to develop off-grid water treatment systems that both protect human lives and support sustainable economic development.

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Boron nitride destroys PFAS ‘forever’ chemicals PFOA, GenX

Photo, posted April 9, 2009, courtesy of Rex Roof via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Renewables Surpass Coal | Earth Wise

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In 2019, energy consumption in the U.S. from renewable sources exceeded consumption from coal for the first time since before 1885.  This has come about from a combination of the continued decline in the amount of coal used for electricity generation as well as the continued growth in renewable energy, mostly from wind and solar.

Until the mid-1800s, burning wood was the main source of energy in the U.S. and, in fact, it was the only commercial-scale renewable energy source until the first hydroelectric plants came online in the 1880s.  Coal was used as fuel for steamboats and trains and making steel but only started to be used to generate electricity in the 1880s.

In 2019, U.S. coal consumption decreased for the sixth consecutive year and fell to its lowest level in 42 years.  Natural gas has displaced much of the energy generation from retired coal plants.

At the same time, renewable energy consumption in the U.S. grew for the fourth year in a row to a record high level, almost entirely as a result of the growing use of wind and solar power.  In 2019, wind power surpassed hydroelectric power for the first time and is now the most-used source of renewable energy for electricity generation in the U.S.

Coal was once commonly used in the industrial, transportation, residential, and commercial sectors.  Today, in the U.S., it is mostly used to generate electricity, and that use is rapidly declining.

Electricity consumption for 2020 is likely to be anomalous in many ways as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic shutdowns.  From all indications, however, the role of renewable energy will only have been increased during the shutdown period.

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U.S. renewable energy consumption surpasses coal for the first time in over 130 years

Photo, posted July 26, 2013, courtesy of Don Graham via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Extreme Heat From Solar Power | Earth Wise

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Renewable sources are playing a growing role in meeting our energy needs, but one place where they have continued to fall short is in industrial processes that require extreme heat.  These include the cement, steel, and glass industries, among others.  These industries account for a significant amount of CO2 emissions because the most effective way to reach the necessary temperatures continues to be combustion of fossil fuels.  The cement industry alone accounts for 7% of global emissions and the need for cement continues to grow.

A previously stealthy startup company backed by Bill Gates and fellow billionaire Soon-Shiong has made a breakthrough in the area of using solar energy to achieve high temperatures.  The company, called Heliogen, has created a solar oven that is capable of generating heat above 1800 degrees Fahrenheit, which is enough for high-temperature industrial processes.

The Heliogen technology uses concentrated solar power to generate heat.  Concentrated solar power uses arrays of mirrors to reflect sunlight and focus it to a single point.  That technology is not new;  there are systems that use it to produce electricity and, to some extent, heat for industry.  But it could not achieve high enough temperatures for producing cement or steel.

The new system uses computer vision software, automatic edge detection and other sophisticated technologies to focus the sun’s rays far more finely than ever before and thereby generate far higher temperatures at the focal point.

Heliogen is now focused on demonstrating how the technology can be used in a large-scale application, such as cement-making.  The selling points to industry are that not only will there be no emissions generated, but that the fuel needed to obtain their extreme heat will be free.

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Secretive energy startup backed by Bill Gates achieves solar breakthrough

Photo courtesy of Heliogen.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Converting A Toxin Into An Industrial Chemical | Earth Wise

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Nitrogen dioxide is a prominent air pollutant produced by internal combustion engines burning fossil fuels as well as by a variety of industrial processes.  It is a toxic material associated with a number of respiratory illnesses. 

Researchers at the University of Manchester in the UK along with an international team of scientists have developed a new advanced material that can convert nitrogen dioxide from an exhaust gas stream into useful industrial chemical using only water and air.

The material is a metal-organic framework (or MOF) that provides a selective, fully reversible, and repeatable capability to capture nitrogen dioxide.  MOFs are tiny three-dimensional structures that are porous and can trap gases inside as though there were tiny cages.  MOFs have enormous amounts of surface area for their size.  One gram of material can have a surface area as large as a football field.

The material, named MOF-520, can capture nitrogen dioxide at ambient temperatures and pressures and even at low concentration and during flow in the presence of moisture, sulfur dioxide, and carbon dioxide.  Such conditions are typical of the exhaust of internal combustion engines. In fact, the process works best at the typical temperature of automobile exhausts.

Once the nitrogen oxide is absorbed, treating the material with water in air converts it into nitric acid and restores the MOF for additional use.  Nitric acid is the basis of a multi-billion dollar industry with uses including agricultural fertilizers, rocket propellant, and nylon.  Thus, there is great potential for recouping the costs of using the MOF technology and even profiting from it.

It would be great to convert a toxic pollutant into valuable industrial chemicals.

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Clean air research converts toxic air pollutant into industrial chemical

Photo courtesy of the University of Manchester.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Safe And Simple Hydrogen Peroxide

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We don’t think about hydrogen peroxide very often.  Perhaps we have a bottle of it under our bathroom sink that we haven’t touched in a few years.   But it is an important product manufactured in the millions of tons each year and the basis of a $6 billion global business.

Hydrogen peroxide is widely used as an antiseptic, a detergent, in cosmetics, as a bleaching agent, in water purification, and in many other applications.  It is produced in industrial concentrations of up to 60% in solution with water in order to maximize the economics of transportation.  This makes transportation hazardous and costly because the concentrated form is unstable.  Most applications use a far more diluted form.

Researchers at Rice University have developed a new method for producing hydrogen peroxide that is much simpler and safer than the current technology, which actually dates back to the 1930s.  The Rice technique requires only air, water and electricity to produce the chemical.  The electrosynthesis process, which is detailed in the journal Science, uses an oxidized carbon nanoparticle-based catalyst.

The process could enable point-of-use production of pure hydrogen peroxide solutions, which would eliminate the need to transport the hazardous concentrated chemical.  The use of a solid electrolyte instead of the traditional liquid electrolyte eliminates the need for product separation or purification that is part of the current technology.

In the future, instead of storing containers of hydrogen peroxide, hospitals that use it as a disinfectant could turn on a spigot and get, for example a 3% solution on demand.  Instead of storing chemicals to disinfect swimming pool water, future homeowners could flick a switch and turn on their peroxide reactor to clean their pools.

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Water + air + electricity = hydrogen peroxide

Photo, posted April 19, 2009, courtesy of Robert Taylor via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Natural Climate Solutions Are Not Enough

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A new policy perspective published in Science by researchers at seven prestigious institutions looked at the role of natural science solutions in stabilizing the Earth’s climate for people and ecosystems.   While they asserted that it is imperative to ramp up natural climate solutions, they also concluded that natural solutions alone will not be sufficient.

Natural science solutions include such things as enhancing carbon sinks from forests, agriculture and other lands.  Doing these things are very beneficial in their own right as they lead to improved forests, croplands, grazing lands, and wetlands.

However, these things will not be enough to meet the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement and must be combined with rapid efforts to decrease emissions from the energy and industrial sectors.  Among their various findings, the researchers warn that a ten-year delay in emissions reductions from these sectors could completely negate any potential benefits of natural climate solutions.

As has become increasingly clear, there is not an either-or situation with regard to the actions that need to be taken with respect to climate change.

Maximizing natural climate solutions and reducing emissions from the energy and industrial sectors will provide broad benefits beyond climate change mitigation.  Doing these things will improve forests and habitats, reduce the risk of wildfires, and decrease air and water pollution thereby improving human health and well-being.

Of course, to reduce cumulative emissions and put a cap on the warming of the planet, there will need to be policy mechanisms and incentives in place that support both natural climate solutions and increasing mitigation efforts across the energy and industrial sectors.

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Natural Climate Solutions Are Not Enough

Photo, posted February 11, 2012, courtesy of Joao Andre O. Dias via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Crop Diversity

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A study at the University of Toronto suggests that on a global scale, we are growing more of the same kinds of crops, and this diminishing diversity presents major challenges for agricultural sustainability.

In some places, for example here in North America, crop diversity has actually increased.  Back in the 1960s, North Americans grew about 80 crops.  Now there are 93.

But on a global scale, more of the same kinds of crops are being grown on much larger scales.  Just four crops – soybeans, wheat, rice and corn – occupy nearly 50% of the world’s entire agricultural lands.  The remaining 152 crops cover the rest.  Large industrial farms often grow one crop species – usually just a single genotype – across thousands of acres of land.

This decline in global crop diversity is problematic in several ways.  On a cultural level, it threatens regional food sovereignty.  If regional crop diversity is threatened, it makes it more difficult for people to eat or afford foods that are culturally significant to them.

On an ecological level, the dominance by a few genetic lineages of crops makes the agricultural system increasingly susceptible to pests or diseases.  The deadly fungus that is threatening the world’s banana plantations is a prime current example.  The Irish potato famine in the 19th century is a tragic historical example.

As large industrial-sized farms in Asia, Europe and the Americas start to look more and more alike, the dangers of large monocultures of crops that are commercially valuable will only increase.  It will be important for global governments to consider the impact of policies that affect the diversity of the agricultural system and its sustainability in an increasingly hungry world.

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A small number of crops are dominating globally. And that’s bad news for sustainable agriculture

Photo, posted August 13, 2012, courtesy of Alasdair McKenzie via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Indonesian Deforestation

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Deforestation is defined as the intentional destruction of trees and other vegetation without reforesting or allowing the forest to regenerate itself. 

In Indonesia, industrial agriculture, primarily for the production of palm oil, is a major driver of deforestation.  But, according to researchers at Duke University, its impact has diminished  proportionately in recent years as other natural and human causes have emerged. Their peer-reviewed findings were recently published in the journal Environmental Research Letters.

According to the study’s lead author, large-scale plantations were responsible for more than half of Indonesia’s deforestation in the late 2000s, peaking between 2008-2010 when an average of 1.5 million acres of forest was lost annually.  The expansion of the massive plantations was responsible for 57% of the forest loss. Between 2014-2016, an average of more than 2 million acres of forest was lost annually, but plantation expansion only accounted for 25% of this figure.  While the overall rate of deforestation continued to grow, other factors were responsible for most of it.

Conversions of forests to grasslands rose sharply in 2015 and 2016 when El Nino caused severe droughts and forest fires. Small-scale farming, often overshadowed by industrial agriculture, was also found to play a bigger role, accounting for 25% of all forest loss. 

Indonesia has experienced some of the highest rates of deforestation.  Its forests absorb and store vast amounts of climate-warming carbon dioxide, help prevent erosion and flooding, and provide habitat to thousands of species.  Understanding the varied causes of Indonesian deforestation should help conservationists and policymakers better address the problem.

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Palm oil not the only driver of forest loss in Indonesia

Photo, posted March 26, 2018, courtesy of Achmad Rabin Taim via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

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