biofuels

This week, to coincide with the start of UN climate talks in Poland, scientists from seven nations released a report showing that torching tropical forests to produce palm-oil plantations for biofuel makes climate change worse by killing critical "carbon sinks." From co-author Dr. Neil Burgess of the World Wildlife Fund:

Biofuels are a bad deal for forests, wildlife and the climate if they replace tropical rain forests. In fact, they hasten climate change by removing one of the world's most efficient carbon storage tools--intact tropical rain forests.

The report reveals that it would take 75 to 93 years to save enough carbon emissions to make up for the CO2 released by burning down forests. Researchers also found that it's much worse on peatlands, which are so chock-full of carbon that it would take 600 years before any benefits are seen.

The US corn ethanol industry is struggling, now that Midwest floods have washed out millions of acres of prime cropland, sending corn prices soaring and ethanol profits falling. If this statement by Citigroup is anything to go by, then it could be even worse than feared.

As quoted in MarketWatch:

As a result of the rapid margin deterioration, nearly 120 small to midsize ethanol producers "will be shut down over the next few months," said David Driscoll, an analyst at Citigroup, in a written comment released Thursday. There are currently about 160 ethanol plants in the United States, according to the Renewable Fuels Association.

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The unintended consequences of corn ethanol, part XXV:

Farmers are dropping out of the USDA’s Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) in growing numbers, choosing to put their fallow acres back to work instead of conserving them.

Why? The temptation for profits, courtesy of America's biofuels boom.

Each summer an oxygen-starved, lifeless “dead zone” swells in the Gulf of Mexico from the toxic nitrogen fertilizer that runs off farms in Midwestern corn country.

But now that dead zone is expanding -- dangerously. And it’s starting to put the health of a nearly $3 billion fishing industry and an entire ecosystem of aquatic life at risk.

Last year the dead zone covered an area the size of New Jersey -- 7,700 square miles.

The culprit? The USA’s corn ethanol boom. That’s the conclusion of new research published in the Proceedings of the National Journal of Sciences.