Caution!! Massive Biofuel use = more CO2

Hurray!! congress might raise the fuel efficiencies standards for vehicles..with this new energy bill well great and all that.. we really need to do a lot more on fuel efficiency. What is really concerning about the energy bill is the massive mandated use of Biofuels that is also in it.. the long lasting effect of this is dangerous and could potentially make global CO2 emissions worse. Here is a link to a report that outlines my fears. Basically the problems are these:

• Whenever an acre of farmland is converted from food production to fuel production, we can either forgo the food that used to be produced there (leading to higher food prices and food shortages) or we can make up the difference by cultivating previously unfarmed land somewhere else. The choice is clear, but all too often the new farmland is carved from forests, wetlands, and grasslands that are doing much more in their natural state to reduce greenhouse gas levels than policy to increase biofuels.
• When we increase our land-use for bio-fuels (either using corn or soybean) we increase the price of crops such as soybean worldwide (bec farmers will grow corn instead of soy for ethanol). The US and Brazil are the top soybean exporters in the world. As the world-wide price of soybean goes up, soybeans grown in Brazil are displacing conventional food crops from the most arable regions of the country. The food farmers, in turn, are displacing ranchers, who are creating new grazing lands by slashing-and-burning large sections of the Amazon. The enormous climate benefit that the forest provided by absorbing and storing atmospheric carbon is forfeited. Read that again... if we burn biofuels than we may encourage cutting down tropical rainforests that will release much more CO2..!!
• Likewise, the demand for bio-oils created by the European Union's biofuel policy is contributing to the wholesale conversion of Indonesian and Malaysian forests into palm oil plantations. So much carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere when these forests are cleared that Indonesia recently jumped from 21st to third on the list of countries with the highest national greenhouse gas emissions. Because the destruction of Indonesian forests and the resulting emissions are due in part to Europe's biofuel policy, analysts have calculated that the biodiesel sold in Europe is as much as eight times worse than petroleum-based fuels when it comes to net greenhouse gas emissions.
• There are other arguments to be made about the problems with increased corn ethanol in the US.. like the increased use of fertilizer (run-off), more water use, etc

There is some more info on biofuels limitation in this interview from npr with plant scientist Dave Tilman. Here is another story on how the soybean trade effects Brazil's tropical rainforests. I'm not completely against all biofuels but this massive mandate is very dangerous...!