Biofuels More Dangerous For The Environment

Rick Moran reports on the dawning realization that biofuels actually present a bigger hazard to the environment than fossil fuels.  Excerpt:

The benefits of biofuels have come under increasing attack in recent months, as scientists took a closer look at the global environmental cost of their production.  These latest studies, published in the prestigious journal Science, are likely to add to the controversy. These studies for the first time take a detailed, comprehensive look at the emissions effects of the huge amount of natural land that is being converted to cropland globally to support biofuels development.

The destruction of natural ecosystems — whether rain forest in the tropics or grasslands in South America — not only releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere when they are burned and plowed, but also deprives the planet of natural sponges to absorb carbon emissions. Cropland also absorbs far less carbon than the rain forests or even scrubland that it replaces.

Together the two studies offer sweeping conclusions: It does not matter if it is rain forest or scrubland that is cleared, the greenhouse gas contribution is significant. More important, they discovered that, taken globally, the production of almost all biofuels resulted, directly or indirectly, intentionally or not, in new lands being cleared, either for food or fuel.

Moran's conclusion:

While the green argument was always the weakest, bio-fuels, advocates will still point to the fact that increasing our use of them will reduce our dependence on foriegn oil.

This may be true but at what cost? Contributing to the depletion of the rain forest is something that most can agree is a bad thing. And the rush to produce biofuel without examining its true cost to the environment much less the economies of the world has been a damaging element in what should be a cost/benefit argument instead of a crusade for greens and a windfall for farmers.

We've known for quite some time that it takes more than $1 worth of energy to create $1 worth of ethanol.  If it weren't for huge government subsidies, the ethanol industry would have collapsed years ago.  It appears that the evidence is mounting for a trade-off with other biofuels, too.

This is a very interesting contradiction - biofuels are supposed to be the savior of the world, not its destroyer.  I suspect the fact that they are more harmful than fossil fuels will ultimately go unreported, but that doesn't change the reality of the facts.  As I've blogged about before, there is a catch-22 with environmentalism, and this is another great example.

There's my two cents.