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New biofuel crops set off new alarms
September 29 , 2008
In the past year, as the diversion of such food crops as corn and palm oil to make biofuels has helped to drive up food prices, investors and politicians have begun promoting newer, so-called second-generation biofuels as the next wave of green energy. These, made from non-food crops such as reeds and wild grasses, would offer fuel without the risk of taking food off the table, they said.
But now, biologists and botanists are warning that they, too, may bring serious unintended consequences. Most of these newer crops are what scientists label invasive species - that is, weeds - that have an extraordinarily high potential to escape biofuel plantations, overrun adjacent farms and natural land, and create economic and ecological havoc in the process, they say.
At a U.N. meeting in Bonn, Germany, yesterday, scientists from the Global Invasive Species Program, the Nature Conservancy and the International Union for Conservation of Nature, as well as other groups, presented a paper with a warning about invasive species.
"Some of the most commonly recommended species for biofuels production are also major invasive alien species," the paper says, adding that these crops should be studied more thoroughly before being cultivated in new areas.
To reach their conclusions, the scientists compared the list of the most popular second-generation biofuels with the list of invasive species and found an alarming degree of overlap. They said that little risk-evaluation had occurred before planting.
"With biofuels, there's always a hurry," said Geoffrey Howard, an invasive-species expert with International Union for Conservation of Nature. "Plantations are started by investors ... so they are eager to generate biofuels within a couple of years."
The biofuels industry said that the risk of biofuel crops morphing into weed problems is overstated, noting that proposed biofuel crops, while they have some "weedy" potential, are not plants that inevitably turn invasive.
The European Union and the United States have instituted biofuel targets as a way to reduce carbon emissions.
From a business perspective, the good thing about second-generation biofuel crops is that they are easy to grow and need little attention. But that is also what creates their invasive potential.
"These are tough survivors, which means they're good producers for biofuel because they grow well on marginal land that you wouldn't use for food," Howard said. "But we've had 100 years of experience with introductions of these crops that turned out to be disastrous."
©2008 Media General Communications Holdings, LLC.
Source: JournalNow.com |
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