Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Biofuels and climate: a simple but troubling view

If biofuels benefit the climate, it's not when they're burned; those CO2 emissions are the same as from the fossil fuels they replace. Any potential benefit is due to the CO2 uptake when plants are grown. Society should maximize that uptake and, once carbon is absorbed, do everything possible to keep it from getting back into the air. This almost certainly means not burning biofuels.