Yet another major environmental organization has concluded that biofuels, including ethanol, are a net detriment to the world — both in environmental and economic terms.
The World Resources Institute (WRI) “recommends against dedicating land to produce bioenergy. The lesson: do not grow food or grass crops for ethanol or diesel or cut down trees for electricity.”
Why? The group, based in Washington, D.C., says converting plants into fuel is a terribly inefficient use of land, can never produce a major portion of the world’s supplies, and puts pressure on cropland that is needed to feed the world’s growing population, among other things.
After all, the organization notes in explaining the results of a new study, “People already use roughly three-quarters of the world’s vegetated land for crops, livestock grazing and wood harvests.” It would be an environmental disaster if that percentage were pushed up further as a result of misguided policies to spur biofuels production.
Now, none of this should surprise anyone who has paid attention to the evolution of informed attitudes toward biofuels. Initial enthusiasm has been overtaken by profound concern that the dedication of so much land to crops for biofuels has driven up food prices and resulted in the plowing of virgin grasslands to make room for corn and other crops — with little or no benefit in terms of reducing carbon emissions.
Indeed, WRI reports that “bioenergy will rarely reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”
Unfortunately, the United States still labors under a well-meaning law passed during the Bush administration, which mandated through the Renewable Fuel Standard the increasing use of ethanol in the belief that it was environmentally beneficial.
It isn’t. And notwithstanding the powerful ethanol lobby’s protestations, the law should be reformed.
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