I've groused about this before, about how a crop that's being raised for fuel instead of food will undoubtedly be raised conventionally, and they'll probably douse the fields with even more chemistry than before.

Most people lecturing about biodiesel will say it's agricultural waste, but my conversations with people in the business tell me nearly all biodeisel in the US comes from crops grown just for fuel.

Blaming this on "bio-hummers" is a cop-out. Granted we all need to decrease our power consumption (take a look at the wattach that nice PC of yours is useing)

NewScientist hit this nail on the head. This is about gov't intervention jacking up the values of biofuel too quickly, before the free market (how un-tree-hugger is that) has a chance to adapt.

There are ways of makeing enough biomass fuel to meet everyones needs easily, such as algae farms. But the technology is still "5 years away". Bottom line is petrol get's more expensive every year, and that alone is the best way to convince people to cut back on consumption and drive research into developing cost effective (clear cutting forests for soy-bean fuel is NOT cost effictive, but at the moment it's still profitable). Cost of production comes from things like land usage and input energy. This is one place where capitalism is VERY TREE HUGGER.

And who is pushing govt now? Big businesses in the free market who see £$opportunities£$ in alternative fuels.

Capitalism = powerful corporations, particularly oil companies, who can afford the best business advisors and future forecasters, can set up operations in African nations to acquire masses of land and engage in intensive monocrop farming (ie high amount of capital equipment, few employment opportunities for the locals) to grow biofuel crops.

Capitalism in this case, in Asian and Latin American countries where the land ownership model typically features a small number of powerful land owners and a huge number of landless and powerless, for the wealthy to use the land for biofuel cash crops while the masses can't eat or access enough land to grow their own food.

If the prices of biofuel were being artificially jacked up too quickly, this would be a disincentive for it's growing use (v's fossil fuels) and an incentive for increased innovation in algae, etc. The main point which Lloyd makes, is that every technological solution carries externalities. The only sure-fire solution is to use less.

Bio my ass

Check this out:
Turning plants such as corn, soybeans and sunflowers into fuel uses much more energy than the resulting ethanol or biodiesel generates, according to a new Cornell University and University of California-Berkeley study.
http://www.physorg.com/news4942.html

Best use in mind is restricting it to making gas from old grease. As reported here

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2005/11/british_biodies.php

toocrazy,
Pimentel my ass!
check this out:
http://www.radnoesis.info/rnarchives/072705-pimentels_biofuel_s.php

not that I am saying forests aren't being affected by biodiesel, but that any study from Pimentel should be looked at with suspicion.

Thanks Sam,

That is encouraging news that the production of biodiesel is not as energy-intensive as Pimental's research indicates - due to some out dated data, and some wrong assumptions. But I am glad that someone is exploring this issue.

My push is for more wilderness and less farmland.

I think we are shooting ourselves in the foot. Isn't the goal of Kyoto to minimize ecological upheaval? Wiping out rainforests is what kyoto is supposed to avoid, not exascerbate.

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2005/11/25/202912/19

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2005/9/19/95927/8203

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2005/8/19/15444/0363

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2005/6/27/9325/57114