« How Much Do Bioethanol Cars Cost To Run? | Home | Crist Aims To Boost Ethanol Trade With Brazil With 6-Day Trip »
Corn For Cars Corn Ethanol Makes Global Warming Worse
By Mr Ethanol | October 29, 2007
Salt Lake Tribune:
Corn ethanol is the answer to global warming and American energy independence.
Right?
Wrong.
A bushel of new studies suggest that production of corn ethanol not only makes global warming worse but contributes heavily to water pollution. One reason is the heavy doses of nitrogen fertilizer that American farmers dump on corn fields.
A study by Paul J. Crutzen, a Nobel Prize-winning chemist, argues that some biofuels release more greenhouse gases than they save because nitrogen fertilizer produces nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas that is 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide as an atmospheric insulator.
The study estimates that corn ethanol produces between .9 and 1.5 times the global warming effect of conventional gasoline.
Crutzen suggests that to get an environmental benefit from ethanol, it must be refined from crops that use little fertilizer and can be harvested without using large amounts of energy. Both of those criteria rule out corn or rapeseed, the primary feeder crop for biofuel in Europe.
This study is hardly the first knock on corn ethanol. Various others have concluded that it takes more energy from oil to grow and harvest corn and refine ethanol (a substitute for gasoline) than the ethanol itself produces. At best, it’s a push…
Topics: Cars, Ecology, Ethanol |
Related Posts
- The Case Against Ethanol
- It’s Not Just Global Warming That’s Bad Science
- Studies Suggest Biofuels Can Worsen Warming
- Global Warming Is Just An Excuse
- Organic Fuel Alternatives Explored
- Ultra-Rich Cash In On Global Warming Hoax
- Global Warming And Greenhouse Effect
- Alternative Fuels May Boost Pollution
- Brazil Ethanol Industry Goes Green For The Money
- USDA Drops An Agricultural Bombshell!
New Way Of Making Easy Money Online