It seems to me that leaving fossil fuels in the ground and using renewable energy sources makes sense but some research seems to differ. Biofuels have been made from a variety of substances.

EU legislation to promote the uptake of biodiesel will not make any difference to global warming and could increase greenhouse gas emissions compared to conventional diesel, claims a new study reported last week in the Society of Chemical Industry (SCI) magazine Chemistry & Industry, calculated that biodiesel derived from rapeseed grown on dedicated farmland emits nearly the same amount of greenhouse gas emissions per km driven as does diesel from petroleum sources.

Rapeseed (called Canola in some countries) is the major renewable-derived biofuel used across Europe. Analysts compared the emissions of the two fuels throughout their life cycles, from production to combustion in cars. They found if the land used to grow rapeseed were instead used to grow trees, petroleum diesel would emit only a third of the CO2 equivalent emissions as biodiesel. Would it actually be used for tress though?
The problem here is that annual crops bring in an annual income but farmers need to wait 20-30 years for a return on trees which may make sense to an academic on a salary but it is doubtful that the average farmer would do this without substantial subsidy.

Biofuels have been made from a variety of substances but one of the most interesting is in New Zealand where fuels have made from algae grown on sewage. Sewage is not in short supply and as our population continues to grow, we will produce increasing quantities. Way to go! Fuelled by poo!

Transportation currently accounts for more than a fifth of all greenhouse gas emissions from the EU.

Technorati Tags: ISO 14001, biofuels, EU, Rapeseed, Canola

This entry was posted on Monday, June 4th, 2007 at 2:38 am and is filed under Global Warming, Climate Change & Energy. 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.