A British scientist is questioning the greenhouse-gas
benefits of biofuels production.
Dr.
Keith Smith, from the University of Edinburgh, says it’s misleading to simply
say a corn crop captures a certain amount of carbon dioxide.
It’s
the difference between what corn captures and what another crop that would be
planted on that field would capture, he says.
And
corn requires a lot of nitrogen and some of that escapes into the atmosphere as
a potent greenhouse gas. That, too, has not been included in the calculations
made by the supporters of ethanol as a “green energy”.
His
observations are unlikely to make much difference now that ethanol plants are
up and running in the United States and Canada.
