The multi-billion-dollar U.S. biofuels industry — promoted and expanded for more than a decade by the federal government — may be built on a false assumption, according to a University of Michigan study
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Despite their purported advantages, biofuels — created from crops such as corn or soybeans — cause more emissions of climate change-causing carbon dioxide than gasoline, according to the study from U-M Energy Institute research professor John DeCicco.
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The study is the latest salvo in the expanding battle over whether biofuels, and the farmland increasingly devoted to them, are actually providing the environmental and climate benefits many expected.
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Michigan could better combat climate change by another method, DeCicco said.
"The name of the game is to speed up how much CO2 you remove from the air," he said. "The best way to begin removing more CO2 from the air is to grow more trees, and leave them. Prior to settlement, Michigan was heavily forested. A state like Michigan could do much more to balance out the tailpipe emissions of CO2 by reforesting than by repurposing the corn and soybeans grown in the state into biofuels. That is just a kind of shell game that's not working."
Biofuels worse for climate change than gas, U-M study says
...
Despite their purported advantages, biofuels — created from crops such as corn or soybeans — cause more emissions of climate change-causing carbon dioxide than gasoline, according to the study from U-M Energy Institute research professor John DeCicco.
...
The study is the latest salvo in the expanding battle over whether biofuels, and the farmland increasingly devoted to them, are actually providing the environmental and climate benefits many expected.
...
Michigan could better combat climate change by another method, DeCicco said.
"The name of the game is to speed up how much CO2 you remove from the air," he said. "The best way to begin removing more CO2 from the air is to grow more trees, and leave them. Prior to settlement, Michigan was heavily forested. A state like Michigan could do much more to balance out the tailpipe emissions of CO2 by reforesting than by repurposing the corn and soybeans grown in the state into biofuels. That is just a kind of shell game that's not working."
Biofuels worse for climate change than gas, U-M study says
