Education English | Review Text : Bio-Fuels | Bio-Fuels Worse than Fossil Fuels, Scientific Studies Said Biofuels are making climate change worse, not better, according to two new studies which found that total greenhouse effect gas emissions from biofuels are far higher than those from burning gasoline because biofuel production is pushing up food prices and resulting in deforestation and loss of grasslands. “Emissions from ethanol are 93 % higher than gasoline,” said David Tilman, an ecologist at the University of Minnesota and co author of one of the paper published Thursday in the Journal Science. “The bottom line is that using good farmland for biofuels increases greenhouse emissions,” he said. Corn-based ethanol was supposed to reduce emissions of greenhouse gasses (GHGs) by 10 to 20% compared to burning gasoline.
But previous studies did not account for the real-world fact that when agricultural land is used for fuel there is less land to grow food in a hungry world. That drives up food prices and leads to conversion of forest and native grass-lands to grow food. Converting forest and grassland is a big climate no-no. Each converted hectare dumps about 351 tonnes of GHGs on average into the atmosphere. Natural lands have been accumulating carbon for hundreds of years. It would take 167 years of ethanol production on that hectare to balance the equation, even assuming ethanol does reduce emission 20%, reports Timothy Searchinger and colleagues in the other paper.
And Searchinger found this is the case for all biofuels, although the timeframes differ. When a hectare of peat land rainforest in Indonesia or Malaysia is converted to grow oil palm trees for palm oil, it will take 423 years producing palm biodiesel to work off the carbon debt from conversion of these tropical rainforest.
Source The Jakarta Post, February 11, 2008
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But previous studies did not account for the real-world fact that when agricultural land is used for fuel there is less land to grow food in a hungry world. That drives up food prices and leads to conversion of forest and native grass-lands to grow food. Converting forest and grassland is a big climate no-no. Each converted hectare dumps about 351 tonnes of GHGs on average into the atmosphere. Natural lands have been accumulating carbon for hundreds of years. It would take 167 years of ethanol production on that hectare to balance the equation, even assuming ethanol does reduce emission 20%, reports Timothy Searchinger and colleagues in the other paper.
And Searchinger found this is the case for all biofuels, although the timeframes differ. When a hectare of peat land rainforest in Indonesia or Malaysia is converted to grow oil palm trees for palm oil, it will take 423 years producing palm biodiesel to work off the carbon debt from conversion of these tropical rainforest.
Source The Jakarta Post, February 11, 2008
To Get More “ Review Text” please Click Here
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