Biofuels debates rages on - February 08, 2008
The debate over whether biofuels are actually good continues. This week two studies published in Science come down on the ‘they’re not so great’ side.
In the first, Timothy Searchinger and colleagues argue that those who think using biofuels instead of petrol will reduce greenhouse gases have failed to account for farmers clearing forests and grassland to replace the cropland diverted to biofuels. They say that rather than a 20% reduction in greenhouse gases, a wholesale switch to corn-based ethanol “nearly doubles greenhouse emissions over 30 years and increases greenhouse gases for 167 years”. (Research abstract.)
In the second paper Joseph Fargione and colleagues say converting rainforests, peatlands, savannas, or grasslands to produce food-based biofuels in Brazil, Southeast Asia, and the United States creates a ‘biofuel carbon debt’. This would release “17 to 420 times more CO2 than the annual greenhouse gas reductions these biofuels provide by displacing fossil fuels”. (Research abstract.)
More media reports below the fold…
“If you’re trying to mitigate global warming, it simply does not make sense to convert land for biofuels production,” says Fargione in AFP’s coverage.
“We’re rushing into biofuels, and we need to be very careful. It’s a little frightening to think that something this well intentioned might be very damaging,” says Jason Hill, one of Fargione’s co-authors in the LA Times.
The Washington Post suggests that the findings could mean incentives for ethanol-based fuels are rethought.
The NY Times says “Almost all biofuels used today cause more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuels if the full emissions costs of producing these ‘green’ fuels are taken into account, two studies being published Thursday have concluded.”
Image: Palm seedling in a burned peatland rainforest in Riau, Indonesia / courtesy of Wetlands International
Comments
We’ve been taking a look at this with the United Nations Foundation. As their blogger Matt Cordell wrote yesterday, "Judging renewable fuels on a snapshot of what they're capable of now is like judging aviation based on the Wright brothers' flyer. Within 65 years, we’d broken the sound barrier and landed on the moon. In the last five years alone, we’ve been able to increase switchgrass yields by 50 percent. Everyday, less and less land can be used for more and more fuel, promising to reduce the carbon footprint dramatically. In less than a decade, it is highly likely that converting that grass to fuel will become economically viable and therefore widespread. Similar technology could be used to produce fuel from waste like yard clippings, brush, animal fats, scrap paper, algae, and sawdust — all of which requires no additional land use. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg.
"Up to this point minimal research money has been spent. Unfortunately, narrowly crafted coverage of scientific articles threatens to keep it that way by not giving the public the complete story on renewable fuels, which threatens the political consensus necessary to maintain and increase funding to innovative technologies.
"In addition, the future promises the ability to better use abandoned agricultural land to grow fuel crops, which a second study published in Science yesterday (and not covered in the Times) has said would offer “immediate and sustained [greenhouse gas] advantages.”
"The simple matter is that second generation renewable fuels, along with increased efficiency, better urban planning and increased mass transit, hold tremendous promise for sating the world’s ballooning demand for fuel, for which there appears to be no other viable solution. And, clearly you can’t have a second generation without the first.”
Posted by: Peter Kelley | February 9, 2008 05:33 PM