"when the full “life cycle” of agro-fuels is considered — from land clearing to
automotive consumption — the moderate emission savings are undone by far greater
emissions from deforestation, burning, peat drainage, cultivation and soil
carbon losses. Every ton of palm oil produced results in 33 tons of carbon
dioxide emissions — 10 times more than petroleum. Clearing tropical forests for
sugarcane ethanol emits 50 percent more greenhouse gases than the production and
use of the same amount of gasoline.
There are other environmental problems
as well. Industrial agro-fuels require large applications of petroleum-based
fertilizers, whose global use has more than doubled the biologically available
nitrogen in the world, contributing heavily to the emission of nitrous oxide, a
greenhouse gas 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide. To produce a liter of
ethanol takes three to five liters of irrigation water and produces up to 13
liters of waste water. It takes the energy equivalent of 113 liters of natural
gas to treat this waste, increasing the likelihood that it will simply be
released into the environment. Intensive cultivation of fuel crops also leads to
high rates of erosion."
I don't trust the impulse towards ethanol. There are implications that are not being fully discussed.
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