Biofuels used today cause more greenhouse emissions than conventional fuels when you take into account the environmental cost of their production, according to two new studies that are published in the journal Science.

Biofuels were originally touted as better than fossil fuels because the carbon released when they were burned was balanced by the carbon absorbed when plants grew.

Production of almost all biofuels either directly or indirectly resulted in new lands being cleared either for food or fuel, and that has led to the destructions of large ecosystems such as tropical rainforests and South American grasslands which release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere when they are either burned or plowed. This process in return makes the land less capable of absorbing carbon emissions.

From the New York Times article........."When you take this into account, most of the biofuel that people are using or planning to use would probably increase greenhouse gasses substantially," said Timothy Searchinger, lead author of one of the studies and a researcher in environment and economics at Princeton University. "Previously there’s been an accounting error: land use change has been left out of prior analysis."

The clearance of grassland releases 93 times the amount of greenhouse gas that would be saved by the fuel made annually on that land, said Joseph Fargione, lead author of the second paper, and a scientist at the Nature Conservancy. “So for the next 93 years you’re making climate change worse, just at the time when we need to be bringing down carbon emissions.”

Here is a link to the abstract.