Science Focus
original post »The push for renewable energy has led to the generation of biofuels from cellulose-rich biomass, algae, and crops. Currently, crop-based biofuels are limited to those derived from agricultural products: corn, soybean, rapeseed, and surgarcane. An increase in the demand for crop-based biofuels will require either an increase in the amount of agricultural land or an increase in crop production on existing land.
An expansion of agricultural land can only occur if whatever is presently on the land is sacrificed—this can mean abandoned lands, pastures, or natural systems. Natural systems such as grasslands and forests store large amounts of carbon; if turned into agricultural lands, this carbon could be released into the atmosphere. Though crops also store carbon as biomass during their growth, regular harvests do not allow for long-term carbon storage. From a climate perspective, this could be problematic.
Do the carbon and nitrogen emissions that result from the deforestation and land-use intensification offset the environmental benefits of displacing fossil fuels? One way to assess this issue is by calculating carbon payback times, which represent the period over which the total greenhouse gas savings due to the displacement of fossil fuels equals the initial losses in ecosystem carbon stocks caused by land conversion.
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» see original post http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~r/arstechnica/science/~3/HyJxhSeMXH8/
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