Biofuels not yet the answer

Producing more biofuels to combat climate change will release more carbon gases over the next thirty years than fossil fuels, a new study in the academic journal Science reports.

Restoring and protecting forests would do far more to reduce the carbon load in the atmosphere than dedicating vast tracts of land to energy crops, argue Renton Righelato and Dominick Spracklen. Science today published an article by the University of Leeds researchers, "Carbon Mitigation by Biofuels or by Saving and Restoring Forests?"

Creating ethanol from sugar beet, wheat, corn or rapeseed – favorite biofuel sources to mitigate climate change – could actually lead to the earth heating up further, the researchers warn.

"If the point of biofuels policies is to limit global warming, policy makers may be better advised in the short term to focus on increasing the efficiency of fossil fuel use, to conserve existing forests and savannahs, and to restore natural forest and grassland habitats on cropland that is not needed for food," said Righelato, a Leeds professor and trustee of the World Land Trust, a British conservation group.

The team compared the CO2 savings from biofuels with CO2 absorption from forests over a 30-year period. They found that reforestation would sequester between two and nine times as much carbon over 30 years than would be saved by burning biofuels instead of gasoline.

As part of Europe's pledge to fight climate change, the EU has pushed for a switch to green fuels. It has set a target of ensuring that biofuels make up 10 percent of vehicle fuel by 2020. But around 40 percent of Europe’s agricultural land would be needed to grow biofuel crops to meet this 10 percent fossil fuel substitution target. That demand on arable land cannot be met in Europe or in the United States, which would force these regions either to convert existing forests and grasslands into "energy crop" fields or to source from developing countries.

The researchers recommend that governments not clear forests to make way for biofuel crops. Instead they should increase efforts to conserve fossil fuels now in use, and restore forests while researching non-carbon fuels that can be developed for future use. Biomass from woody material should be transformed into fuels in the long term, buy only when done in a sustainable fashion. This sort of biomass could yield far greater amounts of biofuel than wheat, corn or even sugar beet, the researchers claim.

The researchers used a 30-year period for their study because they believe unspecified new technologies that do not emit CO2 will be available after that time. The long-term goal should be to create cars that do not require carbon-heavy fuels to run.