Biofuels: A Cure Worse than the Disease.

According to a new study done by the University of Minnesota and the Nature Conservancy, turning native eco-systems into cropland to produce biofuels worsens global warming.

The carbon lost by converting rainforests, peatlands, savannas, or grasslands outweighs the carbon savings from biofuels. Such conversions for corn or sugarcane (ethanol), or palms or soybeans (biodiesel) release 17 to 420 times more carbon than the annual savings from replacing fossil fuels, the researchers said.

The carbon, which is stored in the original plants and soil, is released as carbon dioxide, a process that may take decades. This "carbon debt" must be paid before the biofuels produced on the land can begin to lower greenhouse gas levels and ameliorate global warming.

The conversion of peatlands for palm oil plantations in Indonesia ran up the greatest carbon debt, one that would require 423 years to pay off. The next worst case was the production of soybeans in the Amazon, which would not "pay for itself" in renewable soy biodiesel for 319 years.

Fantastic.

So now that we've established that, not only does ethanol have a lower natural energy capacity than regular gasoline and that the use of something that would otherwise be used as a food product as a fuel source drives up the cost of food significantly, it also causes more environmental harm than good, can we please go drill ANWR ... ?!