There's been a lot of talk lately about the promise of biofuels — liquid fuels like ethanol and biodiesel made from plants — to reduce our dependence on oil. Even President Bush beat the biofuel drum in his last State of the Union speech.
Fuel from plants? Sounds pretty good. But before you rush out to buy an E-85 pickup, consider
The United States annually consumes more fossil and nuclear energy than all the energy produced in a year by the country's plant life, including forests and that used for food and fiber, according to figures from the U.S. Department of Energy and David Pimentel, a Cornell University researcher.
— To produce enough corn-based ethanol to meet current U.S. demand for automotive gasoline, we would need to nearly double the amount of land used for harvested crops, plant all of it in corn, year after year, AND NOT EAT ANY OF IT. Even a greener fuel source like the switchgrass President Bush mentioned, which requires fewer petroleum-based inputs than corn and reduces topsoil losses by growing back each year, could provide only a small fraction of the energy we demand. http://www.landinstitute.org/vnews/display.v/ART/2006/06/27/44ac9d0ebe58b
