Alchemist, you and Ludwig are quite right of course, but it's your last paragraph that is of particular importance...
"This won't happen as the elite agenda is to keep all commodities and energies in corporate control. We need to cease immigration, development and land degradation, concentrating on providing a fully sustainable society, not the current destructive elitist greed one."
Unfortunately, your sustainable model won't even begin to occur in our lifetimes. The proverbial will have to hit the fan first. Nature once kept a balance and check mechanism in place to keep humanity at a sustainable level, then they got "clever" and sought to defy nature. Oil has caused an explosion in population. Even in third World countries, oil has led to a huge increase in numbers. If one country worked to erradicate the elite/greed system and introduced sustainability, what about the rest of the World? Many poor countries breed to stay alive. This is a battle we cannot win but nature certainly will and she'll make damned sure humanity, if it still exists, will never buck the system again. Sorry John, as your heart seems to be in the right place, but there's no winners in this apart from mother nature herself. Too late to re-arrange the deck chairs now. Just hope the water isn't too cold.

From the author

While I agree that many things need to be done, including reducing overall energy usage, reducing suburban sprawl, enhancing the energy efficiency of buildings and improving local regulatory requirements, this transformation in our energy usage and social patterns has to start somewhere -- and this is where biofuels make their appearance.

Brazil is not just 'experimenting' with fossil fuel independence, it is already embarked on the journey. And in doing so it is setting a precedent for other countries to follow -- including India and China, as well as Australia. The biofuls issue can only be considered in a global setting.

This is why I emphasized the tropical belt in my article (including Brazil, India, southern China as northern Australia, as well as a lot of Africa and SEAsia) where the countries can break free of fossil fuel bondage and embark on a new energy trajectory. But certain preconditions need to be fulfilled. I'm not referring to the end of capitalism, which might be the dream of some of the contributors to this discussion, but more particularly to the dismantling of trade barriers to ethanol and biodiesel, and effectively the creation of a global free market for biofuels. This would be a huge advance on present arrangements, and help to unlock the current impasse in trade between 'South' and 'North'. At the same time, biofuels will kick-start industrial development in African and other tropical countries; will liberate them from oil import dependence (bearing in mind that India is already over 80% dependent on oil imports, a situation that has to be reversed and quickly); will drive their rural industrialization; and of course reduce greenhouse gas emissions for all of us.

Yes, there are all manner of new possibilities, including algae. The point about a non-fossil fuel energy future is that it is likely to be a 'normal' industry, driven by innovation and competition -- as opposed to their suppression in the 20th century oil and automotive industries. This is something we could all welcome

GrahamY, The philosophers stone is in understanding evolutionary change. I saw an engine that ran on water, it appears these people have one, and provide plans for it.

http://netmar.com/~maat/archive/watercar/h20car2.hhtm

John, “the creation of a global free market for biofuels. “

This means duopoly control for Monsanto and ADM across the world over biofuel stock. Free markets, gives conglomerates free rein to control seed oil production using economic power to suppress competition, just like they do with oil and most other commodities.

Economic capitalism's destroying the world, privatisation has led to increasing monetary imposts on people with less return and fewer services. Economic rationalism and progress is aiding the collapse of our society and infrastructure, with people working longer, fewer permanent jobs and more than 5 million real unemployed, not just those used in constructed statistics. It means what we had for almost free and owned, we now pay a lot more for and don't own it. Yet are expected to provide tax payer funds to support failing privatised entities.

Unless control of fuel and all essential services and infrastructure is in the hands of the people, things will only continue the way they are now. I don't think the people will put up with your direction much longer John, what your delusions promised haven't come to pass, except for the elite. We unnecessarily import food and other commodities to our country, whilst we plough in food crops and shut down factories. Why should we do it with biofuels, just to fill the tanks of a few super yachts.

Who'd want to destroy economic capitalism, its doing a good job destroying its self. We need a lateral approach, not more of the same failed elitist ideologies. I doubt the governent will allow us freedom to produce our own fuels, creating real competition. In a couple of years there'll be heavy taxes and licence fees, making it unviable for the small grower producer.

Achemist,water by itself is an inert compound.It will not burn to produce more energy unless the energy in it's sub-atomic particles are released thus producing nuclear energy.

To separate H2O into it's components of hydrogen and oxygen takes enormous amounts of energy.It may be a totally environmentally friendly combustion,however the energy required to separate it's components in the first place can be environmentally destructive.

There are no easy quick fixes to our energy woes.We have to diversify and be more economical in our use of energy resources.

Wildcat, you are in the right paddock: too much pussy, wild or otherwise. Whatever type of feline we consider ourselves to be, we have rabbited on too successfully.
Grand schemes for fuelling our activities on a business-as-usual basis are not worth tiddly-squat when they have been designed in neglect of the fundamental framework. That framework which is human numbers limited to what the supportive environment can bear.
As Tony McMichael commented in 2001 (Human frontiers, environments and disease)" - the modern human species has now increased 100,000 fold since the initial dispersal out of Africa. This third, ongoing, surge has occurred much faster than ever before. It may yet end up by having added and extra 8-10 billion to the pre-industrial half billion. That figure implies that we will have augmented the Earth's (human) carrying capacity by an extraordinary 10-fold to 15-fold over the past two centuries. Can Earth sustain those numbers in the long term?".
In the five years since that was written, evidence that it can't do so has grown alarmingly - except for those who choose to bury their heads in the sand of obfuscation and denial.
Quoting McMichael again "Although most demographers forecast a plateauing at around 9-10 billion later in the twenty-first century, we could yet be surprised by a much higher or lower figure. If it is the latter, one hopes that it will be because of reduced fertility, not increased mortality."
I share hopes for the latter. But they are not assisted by writers who choose to ignore the fundamental issue of human numbers which relentlessly exert increasingly debilitating pressure upon prospects for human society. Regardless of how useful might be some of the schemes they have in mind.

I have to confess to not having much knowledge about the alternatives and their impacts.

I would think it likely that the way forward would be for Australia to focus on identifying and developing energy alternatives or supplements relevant to our economic and environmental circumstances.

In some respects there seems to be a fairly competitive market in ideas between countries which would seem a our best bet for actually coming up with some viable energy future.