Biofuels: Promise or Peril?

Clip Excerpt: In the near future, tropical biofuels from sugar cane and oil palm have a price advantage, and big agribusiness operators are slashing rainforests for plantations that deplete soils, reduce biodiversity and eliminate wildlife habitat. In 2006, the Worldwatch Institute reported, “If biofuels are produced from low-yielding crops, are grown on previously wild grasslands or forests, and/or are produced with heavy inputs of fossil energy, they have the potential to generate as much or more GHG emissions than petroleum fuels do.” In Indonesia and Malaysia, for example, the burning of forests and peat bogs to clear land for palm oil plantations has unleashed vast quantities of carbon dioxide, overwhelming any modest GHG gains from biodiesel.