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Quoted By: >>672705
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/184666,biofuels-may-promote-not-slow-global-warming-repo
rt--feature.html
The US rush to plant more corn for biofuel is already being blamed for soaring food prices. Now, two new US studies show that cultivated biofuel crops may actually increase instead of decrease the carbon emissions that ethanol and other biofuels were supposed to reduce.
The studies used a worldwide agricultural model to calculate how corn-based ethanol nearly doubles greenhouse emissions over 30 years. Planting switchgrass and other wild crops on farm land, as advocated by US President George W Bush, would increase emissions by 50 per cent.
The studies from the University of Minnesota and the Nature Conservancy published Friday are the latest warning against an all- out US rush into corn ethanol at the expense of food for humans and tilling of uncultivated ground.
The authors said their research is the most extensive yet to probe the environmental costs of producing biofuels.
rt--feature.html
The US rush to plant more corn for biofuel is already being blamed for soaring food prices. Now, two new US studies show that cultivated biofuel crops may actually increase instead of decrease the carbon emissions that ethanol and other biofuels were supposed to reduce.
The studies used a worldwide agricultural model to calculate how corn-based ethanol nearly doubles greenhouse emissions over 30 years. Planting switchgrass and other wild crops on farm land, as advocated by US President George W Bush, would increase emissions by 50 per cent.
The studies from the University of Minnesota and the Nature Conservancy published Friday are the latest warning against an all- out US rush into corn ethanol at the expense of food for humans and tilling of uncultivated ground.
The authors said their research is the most extensive yet to probe the environmental costs of producing biofuels.
