Green issues update Feb. 8 2008

The environmentally poor report card of biofuels is becoming ever more evident. Increasing carbon dioxide emissions through their production, removing CO2 “sponges” from the land through land clearing and more:

The clearance of grassland releases 93 times the amount of greenhouse gas that would be saved by the fuel made annually on that land, said Joseph Fargione, lead author of the second paper, and a scientist at the Nature Conservancy. “So for the next 93 years you’re making climate change worse, just at the time when we need to be bringing down carbon emissions.”

Of course, biofuels companies are already disputing the findings.

The bottom line? It’s called “conservation.”

On the plus side, the Navy has a robot undersea glider that runs on water temperature differences; it uses the temperature gradient difference between surface water and deeper water. Meanwhile, a new knee brace takes a page from the regenerative braking of hybrid cars; it generates enough power to run multiple cell phones and a backpack of similar design could generate even more power, 20 watts or so.