14 DAY TRIAL // Would converting cars that run on petrol into biofuel propelled ones finally save us from global warming, or not? No chance, say environmental researchers after completing a study on converting biowaste into biofuel. And to top that up, biofuel conversion could even worsen the emission of greenhouse gases. This is mostly due to the fact that biofuel production requires certain types of crops, meaning more land for agriculture and less land that acts as a natural carbon dioxide sink.
Joe Fargione of The Nature Conservancy, the lead author of the study, stated that by converting natural carbon dioxide sinks into croplands, we would actually emit more gas into the atmosphere instead of absorbing it. Every way you turn it, the process has no sense because we are just changing one carbon dioxide source with another.
For example, Indonesia currently suffers the most after the conversion of peatlands into palm oil plantations, along with the soybeans plantations in the Amazon areas. A similar situation can be found in the U.S., where farmers used to rotate corn crops with soybeans; however, now due to the increased demand of ethanol, more and more farmers are starting to plant only corn. Brazilian farmers directly affect the Amazon forests, as they plant most of the world's soybeans.
On the other hand, researchers also indicated that only some biofuels appeared to influence the greenhouse effect, while others preserved the natural habitat, amongst which waste collected directly from agriculture and forest lands, and biomass resulted from the uncontrolled growth of plants that were unsuitable for crop production.
Nature Conservancy environmentalists draw attention to the fact that all possible alternative fuels should be evaluated for their impact in relation to greenhouse gas emissions, and that implying only a single solution to global warming effects would not actually make much difference. The key stands in diversity and simultaneity, says Fargione.