Corn Ethanol Study Spurs Dialogue
As was widely reported last week, the journal Science recently published a study asserting that corn ethanol, promoted worldwide as a possible solution to climate change, actually adds more greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere than the fossil fuels they aim to replace when land use is taken into account. Encouraged by government subsidies and the economic possibilities it promises, entire ecosystems have been wiped out to grow more corn for ethanol. Joe Fargione of The National Conservatory and co-author of the study said that “converting rainforests, peatlands, savannas or grasslands to produce biofuels in Brazil, Southeast Asia and the United States creates a ‘biofuel carbon debt’ by releasing 17 to 420 times more carbon dioxide than the fossil fuels they replace.”
There is still cause for optimism though. With any setback comes remarkable opportunity for innovation and adaptation. In the wake of the study potential alternatives started moving to the forefront of the debate. The most widely espoused of these alternatives is bio-crude, oil harvested from paper, timber and crop wastes. There is also discussion around new hydrogen fuel cells that use solar power to split the water molecule and ways to capitalize on the the small diameter waste-wood left in the mountain pine beetle’s wake in the western U.S. and Canada.
Given the level of interest in this topic from the business and scientific communities and the speed in which these new innovations are uncovered, you can be rest assured that this is not the last we’ll be hearing about it. The Regeneration team will continue to blog about it as it develops.
