One little note: One must remember that as we transition
to PHEVs and BEVs less biofuel is going to be needed,
therefore less cropland devoted to energy production.
Most of our transportation energy will either be derived
from the grid or from solar panels used for charging our
automobile batteries. That should allay the Janes
analyst's concerns. Just get the affordable PHEVs into
the showrooms now and your worries should abate.

Or we could just do PHEVs and forget about biofuels entirely. And then shift to EVs with quick charging stations. Or to EVs with really long range.

BioFuels aren't just a threat to national security

They are also a threat to the climate when you don't ignore the inconvient facts related to soil, fertilizers, and the push towards growing crops in the tropics.

Even if we grow "sustainable" biofuels in the States, those displaced food crops will most likely end up where they are cheapest, not where they are greenest.

There really is no way we can push forward biofuels without pushing forward the expansion of rainforest deforestation.

Asside from maybe algae, but so far the claims about it are pretty dubious.

Biofuels cannot be a substitute for fossil fuels at the rate we consume them. Photosynthesis is an inefficient process so that the net yield per area for an energy crop is very low, much lower than the same area covered by pv panels or wind generators. We in the US consume more fossil fuel and nuclear energy annually than is produced by all plants in our country. And our population is growing at three million persons/year. Our existing agriculture is destructive enough on the land and water without increasing our impact with energy crops.

As the Jane's report suggests, there could be problems in poor countries if large corporations displace local farmers and produce an energy crop for export instead of food for the local population. This has happened with food production in the past as Food First has documented. And there will be more pressure to grow energy crops in tropical SA, Asia and Africa since the yields are so much greater and labor is so cheap.

Although there will be some biofuels, electricity from wind, sun, tides, waves will probably be our major fuel in the future. We could easily electrify our railroads as a start and then local mass transit. BEV's will be the most common mode of personal transportation.

glenn-
Biofuels can be a substitute for fossils at the rate SOME people consume them in SOME places. To give up on "energy crops" is to say OK Bigoil, more of the same...but harder. No thanx. Surely better/friendlier/cheaper Ag will come.

The key is flexibility. All renewables need backup...probably grid or clean diesel. Does anyone make AC/DC HVAC compressors yet?

Railroad electrification is neither cheap or easy. Certainly it makes more sense on heavily traveled urban routes. But diesels will be around for some time yet. DC dynamic brakes?

And theres still so much to be done with exotic batterys cradle to grave.

Without military conflicts, Jane's has got nothing to sell.

Ironically, if you look at things objectively, we'd be better off powering our cars with coal electricity than we would be with hydrogen or biofuels.

In January 1994 when NAFTA went into effect, the Zapatistas appeared in Chiapas, Mexico to protest the devastating impact subsidized U.S. corn would have on native corn farmers - a particular irony since the original domestication of corn occurred not far from there. The devastation happened, and that is one reason pressure on U.S. borders increased. Viewing U.S. grain exports as a pure benefit for the poor people of the world is a fallacy. In many cases they are driving native farmers out of business and increasing poverty, representing a security challenge. Chiapas itself has seen massive turmoil over recent months. Now that corn prices are increasing, there's a double whammy effect since Mexico has become more vulnerable to the U.S. market. So clearly an answer is to rebuild the capacity of developing nations to grow their own food. That is a matter of shifting international development priorities.

At the same time, bioenergy offers opportunities for developing nations with their typically greater solar gain to reduce their dependence on costly fossil fuel imports, one of the greatest sources of the debt peonage under which developing nations typically are bound. This is a continuing source of austerity programs and poverty, also critical sources of instability. See this release from UN Food and Agriculture Organization, "Bioenergy, key to the fight against hunger," http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2005/101397/index.html

Electrified transportation is a needed pathway and not an either-or to biofuels. Plug-in hybrids run primarily on electricity and supplemented by biofuels could gain over 100 mpg. If fast-charge technology works out and lithium-ion batteries become substantially cheaper, battery electric vehicles will gain a greater market, and we can reserve biofuels for heavier ground vehicles, ships and planes. But we will also need substantially cheaper solar energy, as well as extensive wind, wave and tidal development. At least with the latter three there will be signficant land use issues and trade-offs to work out, much as with bioenergy. No free lunch.

This food vs fuel thing really gets my goat. Here in the midwest U.S. farmers grow corn and soybeans that is used for animal feed.

The process of grinding soybeans for animal feed (soymeal) required the removal of excess fat because it was/is hard on the digestive system of the animals consuming it. This excess fat (crude soy oil) was until recently considered a waste product and sold for nearly nothing or simply disposed of. In the last 12 months several startup companies have determined the advantage to refining that waste oil into biodiesel. The soymeal is and always will be used as animal feed just as it was before. This is not removing food from the pipeline but rather making full use of it.

In the case of corn the process is a little different but you are still left with a by product called ddg's that is fed to livestock. Did you ever see those corn kernels going into your fuel tank? They had to go somewhere...guess what they are fermented, used to make ethanol (old term was gasahol) and filtered out to become animal feed. Once again simply making full use of the crop not removing it from the food pipeline.

When people talk about food vs fuel I have to wonder why the USDA pays so many farmers not to grow crops (CRP program). World wide my reading sources tell me there is more food grown per person than ever before. It's economics and politics that keeps that food from getting where it is most needed. By the way, if US cheap corn (which until recently hadn't increased in value since the 1950's) caused an import issue in another country then wouldn't our recent higher corn prices make that import less likely to happen thereby increasing the value of that country's local crop? I am not an economics expert but that's how I thought it worked.

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