Neither the author nor any of the commenters really has their finger on the scale of biofuel's potential to address problems of energy and equity, nor even of the variety of technologies that the generic term "biofuel" describes.

Plants have done photosynthesis for four billion years and they've gotten *very* good at it. I doubt "synthetic photosynthesis" can improve on this quickly enough to matter. Can't hurt to develop the technique, though :-)

It might be true that agriculture can't supply today's volumes of liquid fuel demand. But no biofuels of any kind will ever have to.

As petroleum prices soar and production declines, we *will* learn to make do with less. Internal-combustion engines can achieve good thermal efficiency, but most of today's drivers and vehicles use them in a very inefficient way. Worst-case, less than 1% of the fuel's chemical energy moves the driver of a single-occupancy vehicle.

And what's with "so-called second-generation biofuels"? This is an empty perjorative. There are several blurred "generations" of biofuel technology, representing dozens of ways to harness energy from plants, and *all* of them work. Many are ecologically viable and many will become ever more commercially viable as fossil fuel becoms less available and less desirable.

The subsidies Upton decries are indeed wasteful. But they're a flash in the pan; a rich-world farm subsidy like any other that refrains from ticking off the big oil companies as genuine support for a global biofuel industry would. The subsidy-free expansion of biofuels in developing countries (which are already experiencing "demand destruction" thanks to high petroleum prices) is a force for prosperity. For the USA and EU to end these subsidies and tarrifs would be for them to relinquish pipe-dreams of "energy independence" and let cheap developing-world biofuels flood their markets.

http://biopact.com/2007/08/worldwatch-institute-chief-biofuels.html
http://biopact.com/2007/08/report-biofuels-key-to-achieving.html

But it's important that relevant energy research continues in the West: liquid fuels are just the beginning of the story.

http://www.scandinavianbiogas.com/
http://www.greenprices.com/eu/newsletter/GPBE_45_070329/Biogas.asp

BTW although oil palm in is associated with South-East-Asian deforestation, it's an urban myth that sugarcane for ethanol is responsible for Amazonian clearing.

http://biopact.com/2007/07/nrel-brazilian-ethanol-does-not-harm.html

Peak oil will extinguish global warming well before the problem has the possibility of really becoming a problem.

Until the looming daze of $200+ for a barrel of oil (plus much higher commodity prices, higher interest rates AND rising inflation), lets just keep doing what we do so well as a species... deny, justify, spin, emotionalise, rationalise and most importantly spew foggy, self serving propoganda.

In that vein...

... keep breeding more hungry mouths and future insatiable consumers of the good life
... keep buying useless stuff
... keep building and buying bigger houses that we cant afford
... release land on the metro fringe, drive the sprawl further and keep the petrol pumps pumping
... come up with all sorts of 'alternative' energy sources in the futile attempt to substitute for the oil that drives our wantonly self absorbed, acquisitive, materialistic and expansionary way of strife
... label everything green
... paint everything green
... put green dye in the emmissions
... hold your breathe and stop breathing out
... let up on blowing so much hot air
... keep doling out money, signing bits of paper that impose unenforceable penalties for non-compliance with said bits of paper
... sit in a circle, usher in the new age of fuzzy feel good rhetoric and,

last, but most importantly...

lets all hold hands and sing coombayaah.

"It's an urban myth that sugarcane for ethanol is responsible for Amazonian clearing." Thanks xoddam, that's going to inadvertently confuse a few bystanders.

Now, what about the clearing of *carbon sinks* for planting of *corn fields*, not to feed hungry mouths, but to feed America's transport fleet? This is not a myth. Would you care to elucidate?

I assume you know about the subsidies and trade deals George W has with certain South American countries.

Grain ethanol as one of the main biofuels currently being promoted, mainly in the USA. We only need the back of an envelope to see that this has the potential to cause humanitarian disaster very soon.

One tonne of corn makes 100 gallons of ethanol. Today the USA used 70 million tonne of corn to produce 7 billion gallons of ethanol( USA billions).

Their politicians are presently considering an Energy Bill which will mandate the production of 36 billion gallons of biofuel by 2022.

Using corn, 360 million tones would be used. This represents the current USA total corn production, one sixth of the total world all grains production or the whole of the world’s increase in grain production over the next 15 years. ( World grain production has risen from 600 million tonnes in 1950 to 2000 million tonnes in 2006, projecting this straight line gives us about a 360 million tonne increase in the next 15 years.)

Add to this the similar efforts by other rich countries to secure their energy and the increasing demand the new rich in developing countries for grain fed meat and it does not add up.
The rich countries are already sucking in grain/ palm oil from poorer countries or limiting exports of grain to them, prices are rising , with one consequence--- people will starve but will fight for the food first.

For what? Not for decreasing CO2 but so we can still build freeways and drive cars.

Many points are being ignored here.

Some very smart venture capitalists claim that they can in fact
produce highly competitive stage 2 biofuels.

http://www.news.com/8301-11128_3-9811702-54.html?tag=nefd.lede

Last time I looked, something like 300 billion$ a year was being
spent on agro subsidies, many of them to reduce grain production
in set aside programmes etc. So 11 billion$ is peanuts in comparison.

Fact is that in the past, grain has been so cheap, that far less
was produced then could be produced at higher prices.

Energy is energy, wether people eat it or put it in their cars,
there is no good reason to differentiate. The 28c worth of wheat
in your loaf of bread, has little to do with its final retail
price of 3$ or whatever.

People should stop looking for one single silver bullet to solve
our impeding energy crisis. Biofuels are just one of a myriad of
solutions that can play a role. Not investigating them further,
would be rather foolhardy.

The author would spend taxpayers money on storing CO2. What about
using it for algae farming? Algae need large amounts of CO2 to
multiply and grow. The figures look promising.

Given that we in Australia still pour billions of $ into MV
manufacturing, which is essentially a fairly old industry, not
investigating new sources of energy such as biofuels, would be
rather foolhardy and shortsighted.

I for one am happy to know that I can grow a few acres of canola
to power all my vehicles. I am also happy to know that the tallow
from my animals could power some of yours. But if you prefer to
walk, so be it :)

I read recently that tallow demand from China has pushed the price beyond the economic threshold for bio-diesel. Most of our bio-diesel producers are scaling back because feedstocks are so expensive. Canola at $600/tonne means the canola oil is worth at least $1.50/litre to start with.

The great thing about bio-diesel is it has put some upward momentum into grain prices. Profitable agriculture is the only way to sustain the worlds growing population. Profit encourages production but more importantly research and innovation, if we can spare production for bio-fuel in the short term thats great. We need to be producing more than we need for food otherwise we'll run short if disaster strikes any major grain producing country. Wheat reserves are at very low levels because no-one wants the expense of hanging onto stockpiles anymore. With wheat doubling in price those in control may view allowing that rundown in stocks as a serious mistake. A run-down that occured prior to current bio-fuel industry expansion.