Biofuels May Hinder Anitglobal-Warming Efforts

Read an interesting article a couple weeks back in the WSJ on how biofuels may actually increase carbon emissions in the medium to long-term. Apprently the shifts in land-use necessary to support the production of bio-materials like soybeans, corn, or palm could in fact release more carbon emissions. The time it takes to get carbon-neutral on some of these projects is pretty crazy - 319 years for soybean biodiesel from Brazil (assuming you're clearing rainforest), 93 years for corn ethanol from the U.S. (assuming you're clearing grasslands), 86 years for palm biodiesel from Indonesia (assuming you're clearing rainforest). I suppose biofuels really aren't meant to reduce carbon emissions, but just crazy that they potentially exacerbate the problem so much.

Comments

gnp said…
If you do stupid/extreme things to produce biofuels like clearing rainforests, you certainly run into these issues. But there are plenty of other ways to ramp up production that are much more environmentally sensitive.
February 23, 2008 at 3:56 PM
Steven said…
In the end doesn't it seem like solar cells will eventually be a better converter of sun than sun->plant->biofuel?
March 4, 2008 at 1:57 PM
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