Word: carbonization
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...grain and oil prices, preceded by overinvestment in refineries over the past few years, badly hurt ethanol producers. Meanwhile, environmentalists have steadily chipped away at ethanol's green credentials. Far from being better for the planet than gasoline, many scientists now argue that ethanol actually has a sizable carbon footprint, because when farmers in the U.S. use their land to grow corn for fuel rather than food, farmers in the developing world end up cutting down more forests to pick up the slack...
...Merced (UCM) used life-cycle analysis - which takes into account the entire impact of a biofuel from field to vehicle - to show that converting biomass to electricity (to power electric cars) produces 80% more transportation energy than turning it into ethanol (to power a flex-fuel car), with a carbon footprint that is half as small. (Bioelectricity is created the same way fossil fuel-generated electricity is: Biomass is usually burned to generate heat, turning water to steam and driving an electrical generator...
...carbon, too, bioelectricity was a winner. On average, the carbon offset from using bioelectricity is 100% bigger than the offset for using ethanol. (Even though biomass releases carbon when it is burned, just like oil, when new plants are growing they absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, reducing the overall carbon footprint.) "It's simply the case that bioelectricity is just a lot more efficient than using ethanol, in most ways," says Campbell...
...catch. While declaring the polar bear threatened by global warming, the Bush Interior Department added a rule that limited the use of the ESA to curb greenhouse gas emissions. In other words, even though science says that global warming is directly hurting polar bears and man-made carbon emissions are the chief cause of global warming, Washington wouldn't be allowed to use the ESA to do anything about...
...threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) - admitting that melting sea ice was the reason - it was considered a rare green coup. Since the ESA mandates the government protect endangered species from hazards, listing the polar bear as threatened by global warming would appear to require Washington to control carbon emissions. Some green groups even thought the ESA could be used to fight new coal plants and other big emitters of greenhouse gases, on the grounds that they would accelerate warming and harm the polar bear. (See Germany's latest polar bear celebrity...