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Originally published in Science Express on 7 February 2008
Science 29 February 2008:
Vol. 319. no. 5867, pp. 1235 - 1238
DOI: 10.1126/science.1152747
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Reports

Land Clearing and the Biofuel Carbon Debt

Joseph Fargione,1 Jason Hill,2,3 David Tilman,2* Stephen Polasky,2,3 Peter Hawthorne2

Increasing energy use, climate change, and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuels make switching to low-carbon fuels a high priority. Biofuels are a potential low-carbon energy source, but whether biofuels offer carbon savings depends on how they are produced. Converting rainforests, peatlands, savannas, or grasslands to produce food crop–based biofuels in Brazil, Southeast Asia, and the United States creates a "biofuel carbon debt" by releasing 17 to 420 times more CO2 than the annual greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions that these biofuels would provide by displacing fossil fuels. In contrast, biofuels made from waste biomass or from biomass grown on degraded and abandoned agricultural lands planted with perennials incur little or no carbon debt and can offer immediate and sustained GHG advantages.

1 The Nature Conservancy, 1101 West River Parkway, Suite 200, Minneapolis, MN 55415, USA.
2 Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN 55108, USA.
3 Department of Applied Economics, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN 55108, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: tilman{at}umn.edu

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)