Biofuel

A recent government report says the US could easily produce more than a billion tons of materials to make biofuels each year - and it wouldn't impact our food supply. Researchers at UT's Institute of Agriculture are working on ways to produce biomass and alternative fuels.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• utia
• tennessee
• agriculture
• field
• alternative
• switchgrass
• crop
• biofuels
• initiative
• biorefinery
• oil
• grassoline
• ethanol

[jenksmaster]

What you don't understand is that when they grow these crops, the plants take in C02. If you know anything about carbon cycle you would understand this.

[mikehanoo33]

@1tmop1 Brazil uses less then 2 % of there prime crop lands to produce all the bio fuel the country needs as well as exports , and over 85% of there cars run on bio fuel , most of the rain forest is cleared for cattle ranches , so americans can eat cheap hamburgers !

[JinKazama92]

When all the plants are gone, what's next?

[Cosmo1093]

"It sounds counterintuitive, but burning oil and planting forests to compensate is more environmentally friendly than burning biofuel."

"The reason is that producing biofuel is not a "green process". It requires tractors and fertilisers and land, all of which means burning fossil fuels to make "green" fuel."

"Scientists found that reforestation would sequester between two and nine times as much carbon over 30 years than would be saved by burning biofuels instead of gasoline"

[mynameisnotearl3]

lol southern yank cowboy!

[mikehanoo33]

Central America isn't the only region where cattle ranching occurs. In Brazil, cattle ranches occupy somewhere around 8.4 million hectares (20.7 million acres), averaging 24,000 hectares (59,300 acres) each, with some as large as 560,000 hectares (1,383,760 acres). You would think that the government would be making a lot of money from these cattle ranches, since the U.S. is such a major consumer, but surprisingly, the overall mean output from these ranches averaged only 9% of projections .

[1tmop1]

Bio fuels are worse than oil. The reason is that rain forests are being cleared in Brazil, Indonesia & Malaysia for growing these crops.

Bio fuels are doing more harm than good to the environment.

UT should not be pushing for this, it is highly irresponsible of them

[morhelm]

theoretically, there will be a zero net CO2 gain in the long run (if everything will be powered using alternative fuels). But there was a study by a Nobel prize winner indicating that first generation biofuels production may exacerbate the greenhouse effect through increased NO2 levels in the atmosphere; since smaller crops like corn releases more NO2 compared to larger plants. So researches today are concentrating to 2nd, 3rd and 4th generation biofuels. Try to search for it in Wikipedia.

[tazmaniainc]

But i dont see that You understand the green house logic

if you do then why we wont plant more trees and plants to limit the greenhouse instead of worrying about co2 emissions?