Dear Colleague:
We are organizing a session at the fall meeting (15-19 December 2008)
of the American Geophysical Union
(<http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm08/>http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm08/)
entitled B23: Environmental and Ecological Consequences of Deploying
Second Generation Biofuels on the Landscape. We encourage you to
submit an abstract to this session (Online Submission Deadline - 10
September 2008; http://submissions3.agu.org/submission/entrance.asp).
We are particularly interested in scientific results stemming from
empirical, theoretical or synthesis studies examining the ecological
or environmental consequences of converting current land uses to
potential biofuel feedstocks. With your participation, this should
be an exciting and highly visible session.
We look forward to seeing you in San Francisco.
Best wishes,
Evan DeLucia, co-organizer (<mailto:delucia from uiuc.edu>delucia from uiuc.edu)
Bill Parton, co-organizer
(<mailto:billp from nrel.colostate.edu>billp from nrel.colostate.edu)
"The accelerating combustion of fossil fuels is driving the
accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; as this
"greenhouse" gas accumulates it forces a rapid and potentially
dangerous warming of the planet. Biofuels have the potential to
offset the accumulation of carbon dioxide and thus slow the rate of
global warming. The largest contiguous biome in continental North
America is the agricultural region where corn and soybean are grown
in rotation. Allocating a portion of this region to the production of
"second generation" biofuels, such as perennial grasses, has the
potential to reduce the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere and may mitigate some of the negative impacts of modern
agriculture, including the loss of soil carbon and nitrogen
contamination of ground water. This session will examine recent
understanding of the effects of biofuel feedstocks on the
biogeochemical cycling of carbon, nitrogen and water, and will
incorporate societal and economic implications through a discussion
of life-cycle analysis applied to biofuel feedstocks."
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