Biomass Fuels Worsening Hungarian Drought, According To Professor - Reuters

[hatrack]

BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Biofuel production and burning agricultural by-products in power plants contributed to Hungary's severe drought this year, an academic expert said on Thursday.

Drought slashed Hungary's maize crop by half this year but dry weather would have less impact on crops if farmers left the plants' stalks and straw on the fields as protection from the sun and evaporation, instead of selling it as biomass. "There is plenty of biomass out there to burn and lots of fallow land to grow energy crops," Szent Istvan University professor Marta Birkas told a farming conference. "I caution everyone not to sell straw and stalks to power plants," she said. "The soil needs it as a protection from drought."

Biofuel makers turn grains and oil seeds into gasoline and many burn farm byproducts to meet the often high energy needs of their plants for processes like fermentation.

Biofuels are touted as a way to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases which contribute to global warming, but Birkas said biofuel production was now adding to the problems caused by extreme weather which many blame on climate change.

EDIT

http://uk.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUKL2049584120070920

[NickB79]

1. Sigh, people here have stated this in the past

That removing biomass from soils for biofuels will have negative effects on the land, including myself (though I didn't consider the evaporation aspect, just the soil nutrition and bacterial flora aspects).

Don't worry, I'm sure someone will be along shortly with a link to a study proving that what the Hungarians are seeing isn't actually what they're seeing, and that the biofuels boom can continue as usual.