Food-based biofuels can spur climate change: study - Reuters

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

Food-based biofuels can spur climate change: study
Thu Feb 7, 2008 2:15pm EST

By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Alternative fuels made from
corn, soybeans, sugarcane and palm trees can in some
cases increase the amount of climate-warming carbon
dioxide that goes into the atmosphere, U.S. researchers
reported on Thursday.

These so-called food-based biofuels can actually hurt
the environment if they are produced on land that was
formerly grassland, rainforest or savanna, the scientists
said in the journal Science.

Nonfossil fuels -- ethanol made from corn or sugarcane
and biodiesel made from palm trees or soybeans -- are
meant to lessen dependence on petroleum products,
which release the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide when
they burn.

However, biofuels can release carbon even before they
are burned, depending on how they are made, said study
co-author Jason Hill of the University of Minnesota.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSN0716998820080207

[DCKit]

1. Not to mention the far more disasterous effect of driving food prices higher.

There are other alternatives and it's already been proven over and over that the U.S. doesn't have enough farmland to grow enough biofuel crops to offset even a fraction of our current fossil fuel use.

We need to integrate several different technologies:

1) Coal gas/synfuel (with sulfur and mercury capture)
2) Solar electric and thermal
3) Wind power
4) Hydro, Wave and Tidal generation (but not to block rivers and destroy ecosystems)
5) Distributed Co-Generation/Combined Heat and Power
6) Pyrolysis - same as coal gasification, but using raw biomass
7) Dump Mining with Plasma furnaces (cleanly burn those diapers your Mom threw away thirty years ago to run your new plasma TV)
8) Methane Production (every large sewer treatment plant is a goldmine)

I'm sure I missed a few, but the above are proven, effective and efficient technologies we could begin building toward TODAY.

Oil ONLY became our sole energy source because we made it so. It was cheaper and easier than anything except coal. Getting off oil is going to require a combination of technologies and investment. The $2 trillion estimated cost of the illegal war in Iraq would have gone a long way in developing and implementing every one of these technologies.