Environment: Doing One Thing

It's a rule here that vigorous for action argued to be THE solution to a problem misses the point. That's because, you can never do only one thing. So it is with the pitch for biofuels. To the extent that land used for production of biofuels such as enthanol is converted from native ecosystems such as rainforests, peatlands, savannas and grasslands, there is created what is called a "biofuel carbon debt" of from 17 to 420 times the amount of carbon release reduced by replacing conventional fuel with the biofuel. That's because the nature systems suck up huge amounts of carbon just by sitting there doing their natural thing. The report, in Science magazine, is called "Land Clearing and the Biofuel Carbon debt." However, using idle agricultural land about breaks even on the carbon production / saving. The abstract of the article didn't mention this point, but just breaking even seems not worth the effort.

A second article, "Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels," found "that corn-base ethanol, instead of producing a 20% savings, nearly doubles greenhouse emissions over 30 years." Switchgrass, the favorite of President George W. Bush, is even worse. The problem is the same one as in the "Land Clearing" article. The carbon cost of clearing virgin lands previously has not been included. Oops.

The two reports are found in the Science Express section of the magazine's home page. See www.sciencemag.org/magazine.dtl.