SEARCHINGER, Timothy & colleagues: use of croplands for Biofuels increases Greenhouse Gases from land use changes

Dr Tim Searchinger is a Research Scholar and Lecturer in Public and International Affairs at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School and the Princeton Environmental Initiative. He is also a Transatlantic Fellow of the German Marshall Fund of the United States. Trained as a lawyer, Dr Searchinger now works primarily on interdisciplinary environmental issues related to agriculture (see: http://www.princeton.edu/~tsearchi/index.html ).

Dr Timothy Searchinger and colleagues showed that use of croplands for Biofuels increases Greenhouse Gases through emissions from land-use change (2008): “Most prior studies have found that substituting biofuels for gasoline will reduce greenhouse gases because biofuels sequester carbon through the growth of the feedstock. These analyses have failed to count the carbon emissions that occur as farmers worldwide respond to higher prices and convert forest and grassland to new cropland to replace the grain (or cropland) diverted to biofuels. By using a worldwide agricultural model to estimate emissions from land-use change, we found that corn-based ethanol, instead of producing a 20% savings, nearly doubles greenhouse emissions over 30 years and increases greenhouse gases for 167 years. Biofuels from switchgrass, if grown on U.S. corn lands, increase emissions by 50%. This result raises concerns about large biofuel mandates and highlights the value of using waste products.” [1].

[1]. Dr Timothy Searchinger and colleagues (“Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions from Land-Use Change”, Science 29 February 2008, Vol. 319. no. 5867, pp. 1238 – 1240: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1151861 ).