Bad, bad biofuels: negative reaction to Science emission articles pours in from world press; emission tables, data ready now online for download

Reaction to two articles published in Science magazine continues to pour in from the world’s media, almost universally dismissing the potential for biofuels to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

But the lead author of one of the studies, Timothy Searchinger of Princeton University, offered some hope in a Science magazine podcast interview.

“The key” he said, “is you want to avoid using productive land because for the most part that productive land is either producing a lot of carbon benefits, carbon savings right now or food that has to be replaced. So that means, for example, if we make biofuels out of waste products, we don’t have that land conversion problem. And that’s a pure benefit. There is also some thought that you might be able to find really degraded, marginal cropland and use that to produce biofuels on. That may, in fact, be true in some cases, but it’s going to be very, very specific because if it’s degraded, not producing a lot of crops, the question is whether it will produce a lot of biofuels.

The complete supporting online material from the Searchinger study, including well-to-wheel emission tables can be downloaded (free) here.

Reaction from world press is linked below, most of it strong reading, usually condemning biofuels:

The Register
San Francisco Chronicle
World Changing
Wall Street Journal
Science
The Morning Call
TIME
National Post (Canada)
CTV
The Car Connection
The Nature Conservancy
New York Times
Los Angeles Times
Washington Post
25×25 response

More on the Science magazine controversy from Biofuels Digest:

A group of scientists write to US President George Bush and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urging them to revise US biofuels policies

Biofuels emissions authors say biofuels OK if made from waste, perennials, or abandoned land

93 percent increase in greenhouse gases? Renewable Fuel Association says fossil fuels created the “carbon debt we can never repay”

Nature Conservancy study says converting land for biofuels increases net carbon usage

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