Here's a BBC article that is a good example of misinformation and a few lies. It appears to be typical of petroleum interests that push the worst possible ways to make biofuels then criticize these systems' imperfections.

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/scien...5369284.stm

It is well known that corn and cane are both impractical ways to mass produce ethanol because their standard cultivation takes massive inputs of petroleum either as energy or agrochemicals. Ethanol can be made and profits can be made but these systems are not sustainable and take large areas of food production quality land. The same can be said of using African oil palm, plus the fact that much forest land is being denuded and damaged for its cultivation.

There are thousands of other possibilities but these do not show as much promise for profits for certain interests so are little investigated. For me, little work has been done as yet on sustainable alternative fuels. The research goes into fuels that are green in name but not in practice.

May I suggest certain criteria that would make a alt fuel crop ideal:

1)The crop or its products must not need any agrochemical or energy input that cannot be supplied from the same farm where it is cultivated.
2)The crop must be suited to cultivation on marginal land or in other situations that do not tie up prime food producing land, such as marshes or semidesert.
3)The possible by-products of the crop must be fully utilizable in order to make the system have good economic feasibility.