Punchline:  the supposed greenhouse gas benefit to North American biofuels is lost to N20 created from fertilizers.

Next Global Warming Threat: Laughing Gas (It’s Not A Joke)

The growth and conversion of biofuel crops could raise rather than lower greenhouse gas emissions, says a new study led by Nobel prize-winning chemist Paul Crutzen, best known for his work on the ozone layer.

. . . growing some of the most commonly used biofuel crops releases around twice the amount of the potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N2O, also known as ‘laughing gas’) than previously thought – wiping out any benefits from not using fossil fuels and, worse, probably contributing to global warming.

. . .

For rapeseed biodiesel, which accounts for about 80 per cent of the biofuel production in Europe, the relative warming due to nitrous oxide emissions is estimated at 1 to 1.7 times larger than the relative cooling effect due to saved fossil CO2 emissions. For corn bioethanol, dominant in the US, the figure is 0.9 to 1.5. Only cane sugar bioethanol – with a relative warming of 0.5 to 0.9 – looks like a better alternative to conventional fuels. . . .

This entry was posted on Friday, September 21st, 2007 at 8:12 pm and is filed under Energy Future, Environment, Tax Reform/Tax Fairness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.