Feb 102008
 

The science has finally confirmed what many people had already guessed: clearing land to produce biofuels will increase greenhouse emissions. In fact, it will take many years for the beneficial effects of using biofuels to compensate for the harmful effect of clearing the land.

This is the most damning statistic, cited by the Wall Street Journal:

“Draining and clearing peatlands in Malaysia and Indonesia to grow palm oil emits so much CO2 that palm biodiesel from those fields would have to be burned for more than 420 years to counteract it.”

It’s all a far cry from the hype that first greeted the expansion into biofuels by the big Malaysian oil palm plantation firms not so long ago.

Biofuels May Hinder Antiglobal-Warming Efforts

Carbon Emissions Could Increase As Land-Use Shifts

By GAUTAM NAIK
February 8, 2008; Page A4

While the U.S. and others race to expand the use and production of biofuels, two new studies suggest these gasoline alternatives actually will increase carbon-dioxide levels.

A study published in the latest issue of Science finds that corn-based ethanol, a type of biofuel pushed heavily in the U.S., will nearly double the output of greenhouse-gas emissions instead of reducing them by about one-fifth by some estimates. A separate paper in Science concludes that clearing native habitats to grow crops for biofuel generally will lead to more carbon emissions.

The findings are the latest to take aim at biofuels, which have already been blamed for pushing up prices of corn and other food crops, as well as straining water supplies. Read more

  One Response to “End of the road for biofuels?”

  1. Bio-fuels will arrive
    It is the money making enterprise
    When the BN government sees the wink wink
    The C4 boys will spin until the sun comes down!

    In Perak the BN government has earmarked land
    Creating jobs into thousands and billions flow
    It is hard for the people to ignore
    It is the money nothing else to pull

    The future isn’t in the plan
    Greenhouse effect they spin a different story
    What do the scientists know when they can’t say the world will end?
    It is the scientists fear nothing else the matter

    The only way out is to change government
    Let a new team looking it differently
    Otherwise it is a gone enterprise
    Bio-fuel will arrive

    Look at the thousands
    Hands go out reaching for the handouts
    Do they stop and think for awhile?
    Why they don’t receive aids years ago?
    Only now happening on their lands…

    Our land will be crying for help
    The way we are blinded
    So many corridors hundred billions involved
    So I think bio-fuel will plough in
    When we don’t change the government
    We fail the land we live………..

    Complain about this comment

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