ARE BIO-FUELS REALLY THE ANSWER ?

In the US the new EPA proposal dictates that renewable fuels would increase by approximately 9 percent by the end of 2025, representing an overall increase of nearly 2 billion gallons. All told, the EPA aims to achieve the use of over 22 billion gallons of different renewable fuel sources in the national energy mix by 2025. 15 billion of those gallons would come from corn-based ethanol alone. Proponents of the measure say that it will help ease the volatility of energy markets in the coming years as the world tries to decarbonize rapidly enough to meet international goals including the Paris agreement. Environmentalists, however, say that this move will have devastating environmental impacts which are antithetical to the goal of greening the energy industry. Industrial biomass production such as corn and wood pellet production are drivers of serious environmental harm including deforestation, water pollution, and the creation of toxic dead zones across the country and the Gulf of Mexico thanks to the heavy use of pesticides. “Relying on dirty fuels like factory farm gas and ethanol to clean up our transportation sector will only dig a deeper hole,” Tarah Heinzen, legal director for the non-profit environmental watchdog group Food & Water Watch says “The EPA should recognize this by reducing, not increasing, the volume requirements for these dirty sources of energy in the Renewable Fuel Standard.”

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