Industry News
Crutzen study: Some biofuels’ N20 emissions worse than saved fossil fuel CO2 emissions
17th October 2007
A paper on biofuels’ climate impact published online by Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions, a group led by Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen and including Keith Smith, Hon. Professor at Edinburgh University’s Institute of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, suggests that nitrous oxide release from biofuels can cause more global warming than the fossil fuel saved.
It reexamines the relationship, on a global basis, between the amount of nitrogen fixed by chemical, biological or atmospheric processes entering the terrestrial biosphere, and the total emission of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide, N2O, and shows that this emission is much greater than previously believed. Consequently, the emissions of N2O associated with nitrogen fertiliser use in the production of biodiesel from rapeseed oil and bioethanol from cereal crops can more than cancel out the reduction in net CO2 emissions resulting from the replacement of fossil fuels by these biofuels.
In contrast, crops requiring little or no fertiliser N were found to be much more benign in GHG emissions terms. The full reference is P. J. Crutzen, A. R. Mosier, K. A. Smith, and W. Winiwarter. 2007. N2O release from agro-biofuel production negates global warming reduction by replacing fossil fuels.
(www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/papers_in_open_discussion.html)
- The German biodiesel industry is reported by Planet Ark to be lobbying against tax increases timetabled for next January, and worried that bad press about the social, environmental impacts of rapeseed biodiesel will influence the decision. The agency quoted spokesman Frank Bruehning, who said the above-mentioned paper on N20 outputs from Prof Crutzen and colleagues assumed higher levels of fertiliser use than applied in Europe.
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