Reply #4: Please change your title

[lapfog_1]

biofuels are not insane or criminal.

Simply changing the crop to something that is not consumable (edible) is not sufficient. (I'm sure the hemp folks will chime in).

It's the resource use. In this case, land, water, fertilizer, and fuel.

biofuels will need to not compete with food for all of the resources... if you want the same food supply at the same (current) cost (or lower if biofuels can drive DOWN the cost of growing food).

So... you need a high yield biocrop that can be grown using land that isn't now (and possibly can't) be used for farming (hopefully without major impacts on wildlife and ecosystems).

Are there such crops... yes, two that I'm aware of...

One is Jatropha plant, which can grow on land that isn't suitable for most food crops and has a yield nearly that of oil palms (500gal/acre/year). Not edible. Doesn't need a lot of resources.

The other is algae (certain species), which can yield 5000/gal/acre/year or more... some believe that it can do in excess of 10,000gal/acre/year, and it certainly can be grown in areas not currently used for food. There are even studies being done to farm it in mid ocean.