Can biofuels reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that contribute to global warming?
The answer is yes! Even if the world were not running out of petroleum, which it is, concern for limiting greenhouse gas emissions requires curtailing the use of petroleum and other fossil fuels. There are a variety of ways to measure the reductions in greenhouse gases. The use of biofuels simply recycles recent origin CO2. The numbers will vary because they are measuring different things – e.g. lifecycle energy inputs/outputs vs. emissions from the tank of an internal combustion light automobile. Life cycle CO2 emissions from ‘wells to tank’ showed that, on average, E10 could reduce CO2 emissions compared to gasoline by 27%, and E85 by about 240%. ( Griffin and Lave – part of “A High Growth Strategy for Ethanol”) Biofuels could reduce global warming pollution by 1.7 billion tons per year – 22% of total U.S. emissions in 2002. (Nathaneal Greene, NRDC, Ibid.) A U.S. Department of Energy study showed that the production and use of biodiesel, compared to petroleum diesel, resulted in a 78
