FSE and colleagues awarded $1.2 million for study of climate and biofuels production

Researchers at FSE and the Carnegie Institute at Stanford have been awarded $1.2 million by Stanford's Global Climate and Energy Project (GCEP) for a four-year study of the effect of biofuels expansion on climate. Biofuels are often promoted as a multi-faceted solution to the world's energy and environmental problems, capable of reducing our dependence on petroleum while simultaneously lessening our impact on global climate. And although much of the research and media coverage of biofuels has focused to date on narrow questions surrounding biofuels technologies and their production efficiencies, the effects of land conversion as a result of expanded biofuels production could arguably have much much greater effects on global climate. The GCEP-funded work seeks to quantify how such land use change affects the net impact of biofuels on climate. Principal investigators include Roz Naylor and David Lobell of FSE, and Chris Field and Greg Asner of the Carnegie Institute.