This way we can just drench the crap out of the landscape with herbicides. Biocide to get biofuels. Nice.

Why would anyone whine about this approach? You people will never be satisfied. You want a reduction of CO2 but complain windmills kill birds. You want biofuels but complain about methods for yeild improvements. Stop whining because you're holding back the entire green revolution in the US. How can we kill our addiction of fossil fuels when you can not support greener alternatives. You know there are alot more destructive ways to farm. Even organic farms spray their crops with BT and kill all your pretty butterflies. Yep BT is organic, since they isolate it not from chemicals but a living soil organism. Anyway support the green cause and quiet your ignorance because I'm tired of it. We can't fix anything if you can't accept that there are drawbacks to any feasable alternatives. BTW this sunflower is not a GMO and can be marketed as organic, thank God.

I can't consciously advocate it for the exact same reasons as Rafael's talking about, but looking out the window at the flyspeck filter of lethal carcinogens hanging over the sky in Los Angeles right now does add a sad kind of objectivity to it.

These days, life itself is just toxic. Pick your poison. We're being embalmed by our water, air and food. Sad but true.

As soon as I am convinced that biofuels make sense, I will consider whether or not it is worth drenching our environment with herbicides. And don't put me in the camp amongst those who are complaining about windmills vis a vis birds. Besides, modern day generators are much less harmful to bird life than previous generations. The whole concept here is to sell more hebicides and throw any notion of integrated pest management, much less organic out the window.

There is no way in hell this sunflower can be considered organic when the whole point of this sunflower is to allow the unlimited use of herbicides.

I think we need to separate bio fuels and food. Organic food sounds like a good idea (as we eat it). Organic biofuel sounds like madness. If we want biofuels, we should consider them as plant crops NOT for eating. This gives us a lot of freedom in terms of what crop we can use. [ Sawgrass for instance. ] It will probably take a bit of GM to get the optimal crop, but if we want affordable biofuels, this is what we will have to do.
Pestacide resistance may well be part of the package.

We are not going to have to eat this stuff. If you want to drive SUVs based on biofuels, this is your lot.
Else get a smaller car (diesel Yaris ?) and you might have more "eco friendly" options.

____Algae crops in barren deserts in the West(barren, not cactus). Use recycled plastics, and methods to reduce evaporation. Pipe/train tanker in CO2 from power plants/any facility that produced large quantities of CO2 for Algae. Replace imported oil/gas, then coal, then all fossil energy. Make our nation a net carbon reducer. For a soure of nitrogen, waste water treatment for cities like Las Vegas, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, etc could do a double duty. Bio-Oil exportation later. ____Combine that with large solar farms on city rooftops, southern/unobstructed sun facing facades, and in the Southwest, with a way to store the energy for non-sunny periods, and we have a way to solve our growing energy demand into the future.
____Additionally, improve the average efficiency of power plants from mid 30% to high 60%, along with co-generation of heat for commercial/residential /industrial purposes.
____Car pool incentives, congestion pricing, more X-prizes for future tech/innovations. FIX OUR HEALTH AND SCHOOL SYSTEMS SO THAT WE CAN FIX OUR FOSSIL ENERGY ADDICTION THAT IS INDUCING FORCINGS ON OUR GLOBAL CLIMATE.