[FLPERMACULTURE] Forget biofuels: burn oil and plant forests instead - NewScientist.com

[Michael Burns]

>>
>> NEW SCIENTIST
>> http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn12496-forget-biofuels--
>> burn-oil-and-plant-forests-instead.html
>>
>> Forget biofuels - burn oil and plant forests instead
>>
>> 16 August 2007
>> NewScientist.com
>> Catherine Brahic
>>
>> It sounds counterintuitive, but 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, programme manager for Latin
>> America at the International Energy Agency in Paris, France (see
>> Complete carbon footprint of biofuel - or is it?).
>>
>> 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.
>> Century-long wait
>>
>> Righelato and Dominick Spracklen of the University of Leeds, UK,
>> calculated how long it would take to compensate for those initial
>> emissions by burning biofuel instead of gasoline. The answer is
>> between 50 and 100 years. "We cannot afford that, in terms of climate
>> change," says Righelato.
>>
>> The researchers also compared how much carbon would be stored by
>> replanting forests with how much is saved by burning biofuel grown on
>> the land instead of gasoline.
>>
>> They found that reforestation would sequester between two and nine
>> times as much carbon over 30 years than would be saved by burning
>> biofuels instead of gasoline (see bar chart, right). "You get far
>> more carbon sequestered by planting forests than you avoid emissions
>> by producing biofuels on the same land," says Righelato.
>>
>> He and Spracklen conclude that if the point of biofuels policies is
>> to limit global warming, "policy makers may be better advised in the
>> short term to focus on increasing the efficiency of fossil fuel use,
>> to conserve existing forests and savannahs, and to restore natural
>> forest and grassland habitats on cropland that is not needed for
>> food."
>>
>> They do admit, however, that biofuels made from woody materials such
>> as prairie grasses may have an advantage over reforestation -
>> although it is difficult to say for now as such fuels are still in
>> development (see Humble grasses may be the best source of biofuel).
>>
>> Forests at high latitudes have been found to sequester less carbon
>> than tropical forests (see Some forests may speed global warming).
>> But Righelato says this does not affect his calculations as biofuel
>> crops are not, by and large, grown in these areas.
>>
>> Journal reference: Science (DOI:10.1126/science.1141361)


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