Skip to main content

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.
Labels:

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
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nine Prescriptions for Building the Duke Entrepreneurial Community

I think Duke can have one of the strongest entrepreneurial communities in the world. Are we there yet? Well, not yet. But there's a tremendous amount of momentum that I saw build in just the past two years while I was getting my MBA at Duke. While leading Duke's 10th annual business plan competition, the Duke Start-Up Challenge (DSC) , last year, I witnessed a near doubling of participation on campus in just a single year. The interest on the ground was clearly there and building rapidly. But now that I'm an alum, I'm looking back and wondering ... how do we rev-up the Duke entrepreneurial community even more? I read a great article by Daniel Isenberg, a professor of management at Babson, called " How to Start an Entrepreneurial Revolution " in the June edition of the Harvard Business Review. Isenberg outlines nine prescriptions for governments that want to create entrepreneurship ecosystems in their countries. Although he was focused on governments an
3 comments
Read more

$1 Billion House

What would a $1 Billion house be like? Believe it or not, the world will soon find out. Who would need such a home? Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries, is building a 570-foot-tall home in downtown Mumbai. An excerpt from the WSJ article: Whatever the price, it will be monstrous. Called "Residence Antilia," the home will have 27 floors, including six floors for parking (Mr. Ambani needs somewhere to put his 168 cars), as well as another floor for car maintenance. It will have a theater floor (with hanging gardens), a health-club floor, a floor for guest apartments, four floors for the family living quarters and some other floors for odds and ends, like airspace and "safe rooms." The roof is slated to have three helipads (his, hers and the children's), which the government has yet to approve. And the home is expected to have a staff of 600 people. Wow.
1 comment
Read more