Dow Jones is the publisher of the Wall Street Journal, Barron’s–and Market Watch. The Market Watch story below shows that the financial community knows damned well that turning forests into fuel is lame at best.
Lance
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“It’s even worse on peatlands, which contain so much carbon that it
would be 600 years before we see any benefits whatsoever.”
“”This is not only an issue in South East Asia …”
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MARKET WATCH
WASHINGTON, Dec 01, 2008
Biofuel Plantations on Tropical Forestlands Are Bad for the Climate and Biodiversity, Study Finds
(BUSINESS WIRE)–Keeping tropical rain forests intact is a better way to combat climate change than replacing them with biofuel plantations, a study in the journal Conservation Biology finds.
The study reveals that it would take at least 75 years for the carbon emissions saved through the use of biofuels to compensate for the carbon lost through forest conversion. And if the original habitat was carbon-rich peatland, the carbon balance would take more than 600 years. On the other hand, planting biofuels on degraded Imperata grasslands instead of tropical rain forests would lead to a net removal of carbon in 10 years, the authors found.
