From delucia from life.uiuc.edu  Wed Jul 23 11:28:44 2008
From: delucia from life.uiuc.edu (Evan DeLucia)
Date: Wed Jul 23 12:57:56 2008
Subject: [Ecophysiology] Ecology and Biofuels
Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080723112650.0685e8a8@life.uiuc.edu>

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@uiuc.edu>delucia@uiuc.edu)
Bill Parton, co-organizer 
(<mailto:billp@nrel.colostate.edu>billp@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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