April 23, 2008
Links 3 (Biofuels)
1. How the rich starved the world - an article about grain shortages and the role of biofuels.
2. (Some) biofuels aren't very environmentally friendly, either. From last year: Corn biofuel 'dangerously oversold' as green energy. A couple of excerpts:
The report concludes that the rapidly growing and heavily subsidised corn ethanol industry in the US will cause significant environmental damage without significantly reducing the country's dependence on fossil fuels.
Even if all corn grown in the US was used for fuel, it would only offset 15% of the country's gasoline use, according to the study. The same reduction could be achieved by a 3.5-mile-per-gallon increase in fuel efficiency standards for all cars and light trucks, according to federal figures cited in the report.
3. Forget biofuels - burn oil and plant forests instead. Planting forests doesn't necessarily compensate for burning oil, and not all biofuels are bad, but this link does a nice job of briefly explaining why biofuels can be bad for the environment. An excerpt:
Burning oil and planting forests to compensate is more environmentally friendly than burning biofuel. So say scientists who have calculated the difference in net emissions between using land to produce biofuel and the alternative: fuelling cars with gasoline and replanting forests on the land instead.
They recommend governments steer away from biofuel and focus on reforestation and maximising the efficiency of fossil fuels instead.
The reason is that producing biofuel is not a "green process". It requires tractors and fertilisers and land, all of which means burning fossil fuels to make "green" fuel. In the case of bioethanol produced from corn - an alternative to oil - "it's essentially a zero-sums game," says Ghislaine Kieffer.
What is more, environmentalists have expressed concerns that the growing political backing that biofuel is enjoying will mean forests will be chopped down to make room for biofuel crops such as maize and sugarcane. "When you do this, you immediately release between 100 and 200 tonnes of carbon [per hectare]," says Renton Righelato of the World Land Trust, UK, a conservation agency that seeks to preserve rainforests.
23 Apr 21:11 | Link | Category: Current Events, Link Dump '08, Science