Biofuels

I'm off to the west coast shortly to eat sweetbreads with pickled watermelon. Actually I'm 'on assignment', which means the flight will be paid for by someone else for a change! While there I'll coincidentally have the chance to meet with an old friend who is in the process of opening up a new biofuels refinery.

This will probably get me ousted from the enviro-blogging community, but I'm on the fence about biofuels. On the one hand we're converting large tracts of monoculture farmland into large tracts of monoculture farmland...what's the big deal? I understand there are problems in other countries, but it seems like we have more than enough land in North America to grow us some fuel. On the other hand, it seems like a lot of money to spend on something that's not so efficient and the prospects for cellulosic seem bleak at best. But then again, pouring federal dollars into large "vision-thing" projects is exactly what's needed to nurture disruptive technologies towards profitability.

I hope to learn something new.