A new paper suggests that biofuel production may be contributing to an increase in greenhouse gas emissions.
The lead author and Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen and colleagues from the United States and Europe suggest that the nitrogen fertilizer required to produce crops for biofuels may result in larger nitrous oxide emissions than previously thought.
According to the study, microorganisms turn 3–5 per cent — rather than the one per cent estimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — of the nitrate used for fertilizing the crops into nitrous oxide.
Nitrous oxide is one of the major greenhouse gases; when considered over a 100-year period, it has a potential to influence global warming 296 times greater than that of carbon dioxide.
The lead author and Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen and colleagues from the United States and Europe suggest that the nitrogen fertilizer required to produce crops for biofuels may result in larger nitrous oxide emissions than previously thought.
According to the study, microorganisms turn 3–5 per cent — rather than the one per cent estimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — of the nitrate used for fertilizing the crops into nitrous oxide.
Nitrous oxide is one of the major greenhouse gases; when considered over a 100-year period, it has a potential to influence global warming 296 times greater than that of carbon dioxide.
The global warming caused by the nitrous oxide produced by rapeseed is 1–1.7 times more than the 'cooling' effect due to saved fossil fuel (carbon dioxide) emissions. For corn, this figure is 0.9–1.5, indicating that it is perhaps better to continue using petrol than to grow and burn biofuels.
Sugar cane was the only crop shown to have a favourable balance of greenhouse gas savings and emissions, because it requires less fertilizer than other biofuel crops.
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