Biofuels are not the way to go

In the rush for energy independence, U.S. policy isn’t helping. Don’t get me wrong: I strongly believe that we need to stop using Arab oil for diplomatic reasons as well as environmental ones. But government policies put in place to combat the use of oil are hurting the United States and rest of the world more than they help.

During the past few years, our government has begun subsidizing the conversion of land to grow corn for biofuel. According to a study published in the journal Science, biofuels may actually be worse for the environment than the fossil fuels they are trying to replace.

Forests and grasslands are more effective at absorbing carbon than the biofuel crops that are replacing them. Trees are cut down in the name of saving the environment, but the claim is fraudulent. All the carbon that has been stored in those trees for years is released into the atmosphere when the trees die.

It would take 93 years for ethanol, which does in fact produce fewer greenhouse gases when burned than fossil fuels, to make up for the carbon released in that initial landscape conversion. This figure takes into account only land in the United States that has already been converted for ethanol; soy biodiesel that is grown in the Amazon rainforest will take 320 years to make up its energy debt. Ethanol may start saving the environment 400 years from now, but there must be a more effective way that we can implement now.

full article