I heard recently that big oil companies are buying up bankrupt biofuel companies. I'm not sure why they are bankrupt, but with business practices the way they are today, nothing surprises me. Perhaps people are waking up to the fact that they get fewer miles per gallon with ethanol. Perhaps it is simply an availability issue. Perhaps people are protesting Monsanto et.al. with their wallets. The reason machts nicht, but having companies like Shell combine with companies that are in bed with other giants like Cargill and Monsanto is a real nightmare.
Biofuel from corn is not new. Since the Carter administration and the gas crunch of the 1970's there has been a mandate for producing alternative fuels and vehicles. Actually, making ethanol from corn is as old as the hills and hollers of Appalachia, except 100 years ago it was called Moonshine and it was the entrepreneurial homesteaders that reaped the benefits from producing it. A sip of white lightning eased the pain from the day's labors or the pain from life's hardships. (Damn, I could use some of that!) Selling or trading a jug or ten was good income and kept many families afloat. These days, Monsanto is the only true benefactor from corn ethanol. They genetically engineer the corn and if I remember the stats correctly, the amount of land required to grow enough corn to provide transportation fuel for a year for one person is the same amount of land needed to feed 7 people. With the world's population growing almost exponentially, that's not very sustainable. They don't care though, because in a few years, they will control the world's food supply AND fuel supply.
Using Biofuels with gasoline sounds great, but when you start looking at it a bit closer, the idea is full of pitfalls. First, there are many plants that produce more ethanol per acre than corn. Agave has great potential and is grown in the desert. Cattails have great potential, and they can be grown in colder climates. Giant grasses and sugar cane also outproduce corn. Sorghum, willow, poplar, and I'd bet that even sweetgum trees would also produce more ethanol per acre of crop than corn.
Normally, I would say okay, Monsanto, patent that! But sadly, they have taken up that challenge already. They have already patented many plants in India and China, plants that have been cultivated and used for thousands of years. Plants like grain amaranth and turmeric are patented as if Monsanto invented them. This practice is called bio-piracy. They are stealing and claiming age old plants or specific components/extracts of plants as their own creation(for example they might patent the curcuminoid extract of turmeric plants as their own product). By doing this, they can control the plant's growth and use. If you are not familiar with the evil Monsanto power grab, here are a few older articles to give you a bit of an introduction:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0115-04.htm http://www.purefood.org/Patent/monsanto_biopirates.cfm
http://www.no-patents-on-seeds.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=39&Itemid=42 http://www.greenpeace.org/international/news/monsanto-pig-patent-111
(yes pigs, and there are patented chickens, too!)
Now biodiesel is another matter entirely. Unlike ethanol biofuels, there are many promising biodiesel 'feedstocks'. Algae shows great promise and can be grown anywhere.
If you are interested in alternative energy from renewable, living sources, check out The BioEnergySite.
http://www.thebioenergysite.com/
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