Biofuels more hazardous, less profitable: study

A bad news for those, who advocate Biofuels as a couple of researches have found that biofuel is more harmful for environment than its counter part conventional fuels (diesel, patrol, kerosene and natural gases).

Though it is ‘surprising’ but might be true, as the scientists argues for it. According to one study, the clearing forest and grasslands releases more carbon dioxide that was clustered earlier inside the plants in the form of carbons. When these plants are removed from the ground, the absorbed carbon decomposes into carbon dioxide. The released carbon dioxide is 93 times more than releases of conventional fuel bursting.

For fulfilling the increasing demand of Biofuels, the large areas of forest has been deforesting for Biofuels cultivation on the large scale. The forest also observes the green house gases and the advantage of natural conservation also losses away from deforesting process.

The second study reveals that converting rainforests, peatlands, savannahs or grasslands outweigh the carbon savings from burning biofuels instead of fuels derived from conventional fuels. The burning of these biofuels releases more green house gases than its corresponding items.

Giving the example, researchers said, “The simplest explanation is that when we divert our corn or soybeans to fuel; if people around the world are going to continue to eat the same amount that they're already eating, (then) you have to replace that food (from) somewhere else.”

‘Such conversions for corn or sugarcane (ethanol) or palms or soya beans (biodiesel) release 17 to 420 times more carbon than the annual savings from replacing fossil fuels.’ estimated study. It means as much as 420 years need more to start achieving a net reduction in emissions.

Both the study was published in science journal ‘Science’.

"If you're trying to mitigate global warming, it simply does not make sense to convert land for biofuels production," said Nature Conservancy scientist Joe Fargione. "All the biofuels we use now cause habitat destruction, either directly or indirectly. Global agriculture is already producing food for 6 billion people; producing food-based biofuel too will require that still more land be converted to agriculture" he said.

It is said so far that the use of conventional fuels has completely liable for green house effects while the green tree is only a tools, which can save us from the ill effect of global warming by observing the green house gases. But this new research may relegate the promoters of biofuels.

The biofuels have extracted from some biomass plants including ‘Jartropha’, ‘corn’, ‘soyabean’, ‘rapeseed’, ‘wheat’, ‘sugar beet’, ‘sugarcane’ and ‘palm oil’. Most of them release methane or ethane gas essential for biofuel.

null