ISIS Press Release 12/12/07 

Saving and Restoring Forests Saves Far More Carbon Emissions than Biofuels

Biofuels out forests in, scientists advise policy-makers to concentrate on increasing fuel efficiency in the short term and restoring unused croplands to forests. Selective harvesting of wood waste and biomass from standing forests may be sustainable. Dr. Mae-Wan Ho 

Biofuels have been widely and mistakenly promoted for mitigating carbon missions as fossil energy is at or past its peak [1] (Biofuels: Biodevastation, Hunger & False Carbon Credits, SiS 33). Many critics have pointed out that biofuels compete for land that should be growing food, and furthermore, they give poor, even negative energy returns when proper lifecycle accounting is done [2] (Biofuels for Oil Addicts, SiS 30). More importantly, bioenergy crops are a strong driver of deforestation, which results in net release of huge amounts of CO2. 

Rento Righelato of the World Land Trust, Suffolk, and Dominick V Spracklen at University of Leeds in the UK have compared the carbon mitigation potentials of various biofuels with other uses of the land required for growing the bioenergy crop [3]. As land is the limiting resource, they argue, the appropriate basis for comparison is the amount of C saved per hectare a year. A period of 30 years is used for comparison, which seems reasonable, as it takes time for bioenergy crop plantations to mature and for carbon stocks of cut forests to turn into carbon dioxide. Moreover, it would take that much time for ‘carbon-free’ fuel technology to be widely available. 

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