[NEWS] Researcher: Environmental Benefits of Biofuels Overblown
– June 15, 2016, Michigan Radio
Photo: Oregon State University
From ethanol made with corn to diesel fuel made from soy beans, the agriculture industry loves biofuels.
The Environmental Protection Agency is also pushing biofuels. They’re seen as cleaner burning, and burning the fuels creates less of the greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change than do fossil fuels such as oil.
All good, right?
Well, it turns out those claims might be hyped a bit.
John DeCicco joined us today on Stateside. His research finds that these claims about biofuels are overblown.
Good article about the downfalls of traditional corn ethanol and soy bio-diesel. Be cautious to equate these issue to all biomass derived fuels though. One has to be careful and read up on well researched life-cycle analyses of various possible fuels; we’ve known these two were problematic on the net for quite some time, but there are other possibilities not yet commercialized that do offer savings in emissions over traditional petroleum. It’s a shame that funding for that research is ignored while so many subsidies go to 1st gen biofuels despite their well-known problems.
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