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March 28 - Richard V. Pouyat, USDA Forest Service, and Ecological Society of America "The Ecological Dimensions of Biofuels Workshop: A Summary of Ecological Society of America's Conference and Workshop" Production of fuels from plants for example, corn, sugarcane, and grasses, is receiving wide attention as a potential means of reducing both dependence on fossil fuels and net addition of carbon dioxide, the most important contributor to global warming, to the atmosphere. Numerous articles on these “biofuels” have appeared in the popular press and in scientific journals, and policy makers including President Bush, have touted biofuels as an environmentally friendly contribution to the Nation’s energy production. In principle, production and use of biofuels should reduce net emissions of carbon dioxide, because the carbon released from the fuel was only recently removed from the atmosphere via photosynthesis. However, production and harvest of the plants used requires energy, and the environmental benefits and costs of biofuels production and use have not been clearly or definitively established. I will present a summary of the findings of the workshop entitled "The Ecological Dimensions of Biofuels" that was attended by 45 of the leading scientists conducting research on biofuels. |