Biofuel is NOT “Carbon-Neutral”

“Before oil palms, which are small and scrubby, are planted, vast forest trees, containing a much greater store of carbon, must be felled and burnt. Having used up the drier lands, the plantations are now moving into the swamp forests, which grow on peat. When they’ve cut the trees, the planters drain the ground. As the peat dries it oxidises, releasing even more carbon dioxide than the trees. In terms of its impact on both the local and global environments, palm biodiesel is more destructive than crude oil from Nigeria.”

It is well and good to consider biofuel farmed from algae grown in ponds in the desert, or within enclosed “bioreactors,” or, perhaps, from cellusosic fibers found in agricultural waste. But none of these methods are yet financially viable, or even technically feasible. Meanwhile, the burning season has begun again, this time fueled by biofuel mania, with results that spell tragedy not only for the biota in these precious places, but also in terms of intensified droughts and less CO2 uptake.
As we have argued before and will again, tropical deforestation may have more to do with whatever global warming we may be experiencing than burning of fossil fuel. So where are the environmentalists and the skeptics when you need them?

EcoWorld