Story on Bio Fuel, and a story on Alternative Energy?

Question

I have 2 stories to write.. One on Biofuel and the other on Alternative Energy.. I know NOTHING about either and cant seem to find any good information.. can people please help me out?

Answer 1

I have your answer!!!

Studies: Biofuel ‘solution’ worsening pollution

ByAlan Zarembo

Los Angeles Times

The rush to grow biofuel crops — widely embraced as part of the solution to global warming — is actually increasing greenhouse gas emissions rather than reducing them, according to two studies published Thursday in the journal Science.

  One analysis found that clearing forests and grasslands to grow the crops releases vast amounts of carbon into the air — far more than the carbon spared from the atmosphere by burning biofuels instead of gasoline.

  ÃƒÂ¢Ã‚€ÂœWe’re rushing into biofuels, and we need to be very careful,” said Jason Hill, an economist and ecologist at the University of Minnesota who co-authored the study. “It’s a little frightening to think that something this well intentioned might be very damaging.”

  Even converting existing farmland from food to biofuel crops increases greenhouse gas emissions as food production is shifted to other parts of the world, resulting in the destruction of more forests and grasslands to make way for farmland, the second study found.

  The analysis calculated that a U.S. cornfield devoted to producing ethanol would have to be farmed for 167 years before it would begin to achieve a net reduction in emissions.

  ÃƒÂ¢Ã‚€ÂœAny biofuel that uses productive land is going to create more greenhouse gas emissions than it saves,” said Timothy Searchinger, a researcher at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and the study’s lead author.



Carbon emissions spiked, study says «BIOFUELS From A1

  Since 2000, annual U.S. production of corn-based ethanol has jumped from 1.6 billion gallons to 6.5 billion gallons — supplying about 5 percent of the nation’s fuel for transportation, according to the Renewable Fuels Association, an industry lobbying group.

  Federal legislation passed last year calls for production of ethanol to more than double over the next decade.

  Food crops such as corn, palm oil, sugar cane and soy beans have so far been the main source of biofuels because they are already grown in abundance and relatively easy to convert.

  The fuels are environmentally attractive because, unlike fossil fuels, they are theoretically carbon- neutral. Carbon is released when the fuel is burned, but a similar amount is absorbed from the atmosphere as the crops grow. Calculating the actual increase or decrease in carbon emissions has been difficult because of myriad factors involved, such as the energy used to produce the fuels and the varying amounts of carbon released through cultivation. The biggest source of emission, by far, comes from land-use changes associated with biofuels, the new studies showed.

  Hill’s analysis looked at the amount of carbon in forests and grasslands that is released into the air when soils are overturned and existing vegetation rots or is burned away.

  The study found that clearing an Indonesian peat land rain forest to make way for a biofuel plantation — a conversion that is rapidly occurring to satisfy Europe’s rising demand for biodiesel — releases so much carbon that it would take 423 years to start achieving a net reduction in emissions.

  Cutting down a tropical rain forest in Brazil to grow soy beans for bio-diesel increases emissions for 319 years, the researchers found.

  Dedicating existing fields to production of crops for biofuel has the same effect — indirectly.

  Searchinger’s study focused on the global ripple effect of changing the use of farmland. U.S. farmers have been replacing soybean fields with cornfields to meet the rising demand for ethanol, lowering the world supply of soybeans and driving up their price.

  As a result, farmers in Brazil are clearing rain forest to plant soybeans, he said.

  His model estimated that devoting 12.8 million hectares of cornfields in the U.S. for ethanol production would bring 10.8 million hectares of additional land into cultivation throughout the world, including 2.8 million hectares in Brazil and 2.3 million hectares in China and India — much of it forests and grasslands. Kenneth Cassman, a professor of agronomy at the University of Nebraska, said the emissions from land-use changes could be countered in part by increasing crop productivity. “If you could increase corn yields, you could reduce land pressure,” he said.

  In a prepared statement, the Biotechnology Industry Organization said that over the last decade biotechnology has helped U.S. farmers increase yields by 30 percent.

  Cassman pointed out that even with their potential environmental problems, biofuels are still crucial to reduce the world’s dependence on declining oil reserves.

  Several scientists said it is becoming clear that the biofuel industry needs to focus on potential biofuel sources that do not increase pressure on land, such as municipal trash, crop waste and prairie grasses.

  The government is also promoting those sources, but there are still technological hurdles, and the powerful agricultural lobby has put its weight behind food-based biofuels to boost crop prices for farmers.

  ÃƒÂ¢Ã‚€ÂœWe need better biofuels before more biofuels,” said Alex Farrell, a professor of energy and resources at the University of California, Berkeley, who was not involved in the study.

  We need better biofuels before more biofuels.”

Alex Farrell,

professor at University of California, Berkeley



Source: www.greeleytribune.com   on February 08, 2008

Answer 2

Within the last year or so, biofuels, especially ethanol, has created controversy over weather it actually helps the planet or not. In my opinion, corn and soybean-based ethanol fuels are even worse than running an engine purely on ethanol. For each acre of corn ethanol, only 12 gallons or so are extracted, while soybeans are not much better. They require nitrogen-based fertilizers that are now flowing into the Gulf and creating miles of "dead zones", essentially an area of no life. It takes many gallons of gasoline to harvest, transport, ferment and process the d**n stuff. While only marginally reducing green house gases. The American Midwest is addicted to the production of these biofuels. They get massive subsidizes and incentives because the government has been brainwashed into thinking its the "miracle" fuel.

Indonesia chopped down 44 million acres of diverse rain forest last year in order to make palm oil for fuel. With the world population exploding and food supply not keeping up, this is the last thing we want to do.  

Renewable biofuels have a dark side, that is until we perfect cellulose ethanol and or algae fuels.

Think about it.