[Terrapreta] new studies on GHG footprint of biofuels darkens the picture

[jim mason]

a nyt article just came up referencing some new studies published
today on GHG footprint of common biofuels.

the new studies apparently take more seriously and try to quantify the
GHG effects that follow from land use changes wrought by the new
biofuel market.  they conclude that when indirect land use changes are
taken into account, biofuels have a worse GHG footprint than petroleum
derived fuels.   granted, all this is working with ethanol and
biodiesel, so is assuming reproductive plant material inputs from
purpose grown crops.  we already know those scenarios are not
attractive in the total cycle.  but the degree to which they are not
attractive seems to have just been increased.  (caveat for not having
yet found the raw papers and only summarizing the summary).

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/08/science/earth/08wbiofuels.html

note the note at the end pointing out biofuel scenarios that do not
require new cropping, and can work on waste organic matter.

besides the purpose grown and waste derived distinctions, we need some
more elegant terminology to distinguish between reproductive plant
matter based biofuels, and structural matter based biofuels.
"cellulosic" doesn't really work all that well.  i don't have a better
one to offer.  but often find myself trying to explain this
distinction early in the process of explaining why gasification and
biochar is interesting, and why fire, in fact, might ultimately be a
better route for handling organic wastes than than the "no burn"
biases of most environmental discussions.

j



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jim mason
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current project: mechabolic (http://www.mechabolic.org)
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