Corn-based biofuels may actually do more harm than good to the environment when compared to fossil fuels, according to a new study led by Nobel Prize for Chemistry winner, Paul Crutzen. Known for his work on the ozone layer, Crutzen says that the increase in fertilizer use to grow corn crops, the main ingredient of corn-based biofuel, may actually lead to a large contribution in cooling affects to global warming.

Crutzen’s group study has calculated that growing some of the most commonly used biofuel crops releases twice the quantity of the intoxicating greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N2O, also known as ‘laughing gas’) than previously thought. Additionally, the study showed that fossil fuels outweighed biofuel crops’ benefits, and therefore worsening its global warming effects.

While Crutzen’s group study is now open for debate in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, it suggests, however, that microbes have the ability to convert increasing amounts of the nitrogen in fertilizer to nitrous oxide emission, therefore accelerating its impact and cooling effects, another contribution to global warming. It also suggesting that cane sugar should be considered an alternative.

Although, Crutzen himself has declined to comment until the study is concluded, his current study shows an estimated 3 to 5 per cent of nitrous oxide is being released into the atmosphere.

Furthermore, the estimated nitrous oxide is a double of that commonly accepted figure of 2 per cent, a standard measure used by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to calculate the impact of fertilizers on climate change.

The various types of biofuels include rapeseed biodiesel, which accounts for about 80 per cent of the production in Europe’s biofuel industry. Others are corn-based bioethanol, prevailing in the US, and cane sugar bioethanol.