Biofuels seem to come in for afair deal of flack.
Surely they have to be apart of the future energy mix
surely we won't go hungry growing them
EG Some typical headlines of articles:_
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WASHINGTON (Thomson Financial) - The IMF warned that an increasing global reliance on grain as a source of fuel could drive up food prices in poor countries.
Charity(GRAIN) Attacks Rush for Biofuels
Oil Prices to Rise Amid Biofuel Push - Energy: Popularity of Newer Fuels Causes Oil Industry to Rethink Its Refinery Capacity.
The Coming Biofuels Disaster
Forget Biofuels - Burn Oil and Plant Forests Instead
Biofuels Driving Destruction of Brazilian Cerrado
Biofuels Could Threaten Water Resources in India, China:
Biofuels Could Lead to Mass Hunger Deaths -UN Envoy
Biofuels Worsen Hungary's Drought, Expert Says
Common Biofuels ‘Emit More Greenhouse Gas Than Oil’
Global Switch to Biofuels Could Spike Food Prices and Harm the Environment
OECD Called on to Disown Biofuels Report
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All sounds a bit alarmist.
Aren't we looking for weird plants that will grow in salty or marginal soil?
EG
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What if you could use plants to turn industrial waste sites into fertile, productive cropland? Better yet, what if you could produce biofuels in the process? By marrying bio-remediation and crop production, a group of Carnegie Mellon University graduates hopes to do just that: produce biodiesel and ethanol on reclaimed land.
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Turning Brownfields Into Biofuels | Green Options
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Mushroom Secrets Could Combat Carbon, Enable Better Biofuels And Clean Soil
Researchers at the University of Warwick are co-ordinating a global effort to sequence the genome of one of the World's most important mushrooms - Agaricus bisporus. The secrets of its genetic make up could assist the creation of biofuels, support the effort to manage global carbon, and help remove heavy metals from contaminated soils.
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Mushroom Secrets Could Combat Carbon, Enable Better Biofuels And Clean Soil
Would BIG OIL be trying to undermine the concept?
Surely not?
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Maize for Biofuels: The Ultimate Energy Crop
Maize_2 According to research conducted by Fred Below at the University of Illinois (U of I), maize may prove to be the ultimate U.S. biofuels crop. This comes at somewhat of a surprise, because U of I has been studying and advocating Miscanthus for some time.
The chief advantage of maize, when grown in the Midwest, is that it requires much less nitrogen fertilizer input than corn because it does not produce any ears. The sugar is in the stalks, not in the ears and is in the form of sucrose, fructose and glucose.
This differs from conventional corn and other crops being grown for biofuels in that the starch found in corn grain and the cellulose in switchgrass, corn stover and other biofuel crops must be treated with enzymes to convert them into sugars that can be then fermented into alcohols such as ethanol.
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A long, detailed article if interested
AT:-
The Energy Blog: Maize for Biofuels: The Ultimate Energy Crop
