Biofuels not the answer
August 20, 2007 by Alborz Fallah
A recent report published by the University of Leeds in the academic journal Science, warns of the implications of producing more biofuels to combat climate change. Leeds’ researchers published details which show that production of biofuel actually creates more cabon gases (over a thirty year period) than the use of regular fossil fuels.
The report pushes for the restoration and protection of forests as the key to reducing carbon load in the atmosphere. The problem isn’t with the use of Biofuels such as ethanol blends, but the actual production, which creates an enormous amount of CO2 emissions.
“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,” said Righelato, a Leeds professor and trustee of the World Land Trust, a British conservation group.
The study shows that restoring and protecting forests over a 30 year period, is anywhere between two to nine times more beneficial in reducing C02 levels than using Biofuels.
This is not good news for the EU as it has only recently pledged to ensure biofuels make up 10 percent of vehicle fuels by 2020. Producing the needed biofuel would require roughly 40 percent of Europe’s agricultural land, which is a near impossibility, meaning that these crops will need to be imported from developing countries.
The study concludes by asking European governments to not clear forests to make way for biofuel crops, but instead focus on reducing current fossil fuel use and restoring forests.
The study comes amid an earlier research from Stanford university which showed Ethanol based fuels will lead to more respiratory-related death. The researchers used a 30 year period as they believed non-carbon based fuels will only be available after this time.
Print it: 
Here is a small sample of the side of the debate we almost never hear:
Appearing before the Commons Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development last year, Carleton University paleoclimatologist Professor Tim Patterson testified, “There is no meaningful correlation between CO2 levels and Earth’s temperature over this [geologic] time frame. In fact, when CO2 levels were over ten times higher than they are now, about 450 million years ago, the planet was in the depths of the absolute coldest period in the last half billion years.” Patterson asked the committee, “On the basis of this evidence, how could anyone still believe that the recent relatively small increase in CO2 levels would be the major cause of the past century’s modest warming?”
Carlos Menéndez
http://www.creditomagazine.es
Credito I have seen this evidence and other suggesting that global warming is not related to human acivity. At the moment I can’t make up my mind either way. There is good evidence on both sides of the fence. It is hard to believe that the Earth has lived through so much and that we are going to destroy it. Nature is such a good self sustainable system.
Humans are a small factor on the Earth’s climate compard to the great oceans that surround us and the great big yellow thing that shines everyday and has been shining for millions of years. The sun’s activity has a huge effect on the Earth’s climate.
However we can’t be sure and it could really be us that’s effecting the environment.
I believe that this whole environment talk is a good marketing and political weapon. It has drastically changed the motoring market and it is something we can’t ignore but we should approach it carefully from both perspectives.
This is not the forum to challenge the weight of evidence of the world’s climate scientists. For the safety of our children, we need to urgently create safe global energy and transport policies that assume that the atmospheric physicists HAVE got it right.
As a DIY biodiesel home brewer for the past 5 years, I am saddened by the way the story on alleged biofuel emissions is reported. The waste oil I collect from the local pub and pizza shop is fed to pigs or shipped overseas to make soap if I don’t collect it. Pork meat production and global soap manufacture must necessarily have carbon accounting worked out accurately for me to know whether my biodiesel efforts are in vain. But for sure, the greenhouse cost of pig meat and the global soap industry is NOT ZERO!!
My car advice is that Peak Oil will overtake this debate, inevitably lead to a severe global recession, and as a consequence global CO2 emissions will fall dramatically. When real emissions fall, the carbon trading schemes will all collapse, and market-based solutions for clean energy investment will collapse too.
Surprise, surprise!!! – the free market will yet again be shown to be incompatible with the imperative of sustaining this Planet’s biosphere for future generations to enjoy.
did i say “global CO2 emissions will fall dramatically”?
too right! the long lag-time of global warming means that polar ice will keep on melting, and sea levels will keep on rising for hundreds of years to come, even in the face of severe deep global recession.
SE Queensland’s Sunshine Coast today is but a mild foretaste of what is to come with climate change, with or without Peak Oil’s recession. Climate refugees will be on the run from floods, sea inundation, droughts and hurricanes, with basically not many viable places to relocate.
It would seem timely for big business to butt out of influence-peddling in political circles, and let popularly elected governments at last work out some sane global energy, transport and population policies for the long haul…..
“whatever it takes”
;-)