Converting land to biofuel production can actually speed global warming, find scientists, and that makes oil companies happy.
Critics of the rush to put land into biofuel production got 450 new allies this morning: the member companies of the U.S. National Petrochemical and Refiners' Association (NPRA).
The association wants to draw attention to the findings of a study by the Nature Conservancy and University of Minnesota that highlights significant negative global warming impacts of land clearing for biofuel production and a resulting “biofuel carbon debt.”
And in further support, another new study—details of which also just became available—by researchers from Princeton University, Woods Hole Research Center and Iowa State University, concluded that over 30 years, use of traditional corn-based ethanol would produce twice as much greenhouse gas emissions as regular gasoline.
Both new studies are to be published in next week's issue of the journal Science. They were published online yesterday.
Charles T. Drevna, President of NPRA, one day after testifying before the U.S. Senate to express his organization's concerns with the biofuel provisions of the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act, noted the Nature Conservancy study was published just hours after the hearing.
“We’ve consistently called attention to the unintended consequences of building up a mandatory reliance on biofuels,” Drevna said.
“Hasty political action can sometimes have the opposite effect of what was originally intended. In some cases, as this study suggests, biofuels could ultimately result in more greenhouse gas emissions than the fossil fuels they were intended to replace. Calling the study ‘simplistic,’ as biofuel interests have, doesn’t eliminate the inconvenient truth or change the facts about ethanol and greenhouse gases.”
Highlights from the Nature Conservancy’s study:
- Converting rainforests, peatlands, savannas, or grasslands to produce biofuels in Brazil, Southeast Asia, and the United States creates a ‘biofuel carbon debt’ by releasing 17 to 420 times more carbon dioxide than the fossil fuels they replace.
- For U.S. Central grassland on farmland that has been enrolled in the United States Conservation Reserve Program for 15 years, converting it to corn ethanol production creates a biofuel carbon debt that would take approximately 48 years to repay.
- The analyses suggest that biofuels produced on converted lands could, for long periods of time, be greater net emitters of greenhouse gasses than the fossil fuels they typically displace.
- For current or developing biofuel technologies, any strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that causes land conversion from native ecosystems to cropland is likely to be counterproductive.
The studies are vindication to those who've applauded the principle of biofuels, but have criticized the extent to which governments like the United States have embraced them without fully understanding the effects.
U.S. NPRA members include virtually all U.S. refiners and petrochemical manufacturers and others that supply gasoline, diesel fuel, heating oil, jet fuel, lubricants and the chemicals for plastics, clothing, medicine and computers.
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It is unconcionable to report such fantastic claims without a clear link, ie report names, internet links etc so that interested readers can go directly to the source. This is irresponsible sensationalistic reporting at its worst!