BIO FOOLISH?

Grain and oil seed biofuels, (Corn based ethanol in particular), has become a huge business in -America, and around the world! Iowa is the mecca of Ethanol. Everyone loves it. Politicians love it because it is a feel good policy, creating provide jobs, and stimulating local economies. Farmers love it, just look at the price of a bushel of corn.
There is no doubt, corn based bio fuel ethanol has benefits. It is an energy positive fuel, and slightly reduces dependency on foreign oil. However, there is a growing realization that unintended consequences to the biofuel industry are beginning to emerge.
Using land to grow farm crop fuels leads to the destruction of forests and grasslands that sequester vast amounts of carbon, the same carbon that causes global warming once released into the atmosphere. And now, enormous amounts of carbon are being emitted into the atmosphere as more and more wilderness is razed.
Grain and oilseed based biofuel industry, is growing exponentially, on a global scale. This significantly increases demand for crops. Prices rise, and farms expand into nature. It is happening all over the world. In the last half of 2007, 750,000 acres of Brazilian rain forest were lost to newly developed crop land. Brazil now ranks fourth in the world, for carbon emissions, most of which come from deforestation. Indonesia has bulldozed and burned so much of its rain forests to grow palm oil trees for biodiesel that it now ranks 3rd in the world for carbon emissions. Previously it had been ranked 21st.
Additionally, not all grains diverted to fuel production will be replaced. Reductions in grains available for food production cause food prices to rise. So, the poor eat less. We’re creating a situation that pits millions of automobile drivers against millions of the worlds hungry.
Biofuel production is important. However, it is not a magic bullet, and it is accelerating global warming, rather than reducing it. Science must keep searching for and developing better, cleaner, and more efficient ways to produce the energy the world thirsts for.