Just one month ago, a study conducted by a team of American researchers concluded that there was nothing more environmental-friendly than the biofuel crops, that could reduce the greenhouse gas emissions by 94% and produce five times more energy. New studies however warn that by transforming the various ecosystems into biofuel crop fields would only accentuate the global warming phenomenon rather than reducing it. According to the latest estimations, converting natural ecosystems into biofuel crop fields is likely to release up to 420 times more carbon.

“The land we’re likely to plow up is the land that we’ve had taking up carbon for decades,” said Tim Searchinger, who conducted the experiment along with other scientists, the Washington Post reported. “We can’t get to a result, no matter how heroically we make assumptions on behalf of corn ethanol, where it will actually generate greenhouse-gas benefits,” he added, estimating that 167 years would pass before the biofuel would stop contributing to the climate change.

There are several studies that have been conducted on the matter; one of them, released by a team of researchers at the Princeton University, led by Tim Searchinger, in collaboration with fellow scientists at Woods Hole Research Center and Iowa State University, concludes that the use of corn-based ethanol would produce twice as much greenhouse emissions in 30 years than gasoline.

Another study conducted by a Nature Conservatory scientist in collaboration with researchers at the University of Minnesota concluded that by converting rainforests, peatlands and grasslands into farms for biofuel crops would significantly increase global warming for decades to come, even centuries. “We’re rushing into biofuels, and we need to be very careful,” said Jason Hill from the University of Minnesota, according to the Los Angeles Times. “It’s a little frightening to think that something this well intentioned might be very damaging.”