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Friday, February 8, 2008
Study: Ethanol Worse for Climate Than Gasoline?
The answer this article proposes for the current production process of biofuels - yes. While I haven't seen the research in Science yet, this is the first study to take into account land use change as a factor in determining the environmental friendliness of biofuels. But before we throw out the notion of biofuels pay particular attention to the end of this piece, which states, "... [the] focus of the biofuels industry needs a rapid change of direction, away from using cropland — which is where most U.S. biofuels come from today — and toward other sources of starting material. " And, "Environmentally friendly biofuels could also be made from agricultural waste or grasses grown on land that's not suitable for crops. "
This is where the future of biofuels likely rests. On lands that are not currently used for farming (such as a huge swath of the great plains in the US) and where a net carbon gain could be realized by planting cellulosic type crops for biofuels production.
Read the article here.
This is where the future of biofuels likely rests. On lands that are not currently used for farming (such as a huge swath of the great plains in the US) and where a net carbon gain could be realized by planting cellulosic type crops for biofuels production.
Read the article here.
Labels: biofuels
posted by Jamie Lang at 3:59 PM
1Comments:
Human beaing are not omnivores as we learned in school but "burnivores"; The burn everything to access their energy needs. The burnivore is also extremely energy illiterate and that causes them not to see the alterantives. We do not need to burn to access energy. Chemical energy forms like oil,coal gas and wood and also biofuels have the greatest property that it can be stored for hudredsd up to millions of years and for that reason chemical energy sources are so suitable to turn those into durable goods. Oils for plastics and woods for building materials. All our energy needs for which we burn things today can be replaced by electricty; and electricty can be generated from sunlight and geothermal sources without need of burning anything.
For the coming hundred years our planet will receive 550.000 ZJ of light energy, while the total fossil resources are only left 42 ZJ (oil 8, coal 29 and gas 5 ZJ) further we have 10.000 ZJ of geothermal energy and 30ZJ of wind and waterflow for the coming 100 years. We are not in an energy crisis but an energy illiteracy crisis.
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