http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/st...658898,00.html

 

The author makes a good point. Though I've always associated biodiesel with the ultimate in environmental friendliness (my college had a biodiesel plant running off waste from the dining hall), if it were to become a primary fuel source, equally negative impacts would exist for the environment. And I definitely agree with the author that the main objective should be to find new ways to reduce consumption, more so than finding ever increasing supplies of energy to fuel our utterly senseless demand curve. So, by all means, let organic waste-borne biodiesel fill the gap as a friendly supplement for the time being, but don't accelerate the destruction of the biosphere in an attempt to save it by farming for biodiesel in places where we shouldn't - which will inevitably happen around the world.

 

This is indeed a big problem, and here's why:

Rape-seed (canola) oil: 100 gallons per acre per year

Palm oil: 600 gallons per acre per year

It's just so much cheaper to make biodiesel from Palm-oil, hence the very real danger that rainforest will start to be destroyed to make it.

Hence my overwhelming support for desert based algae growth which can produce up to 10,000 gallons per acre. When the companies investing in this get production up and running they'll be able to undercut not just canola and palm-oil prices (hence saving the agricultural land and rainforest respectively), but the out-of-the-ground crude oil prices too. And that's one heck of a business opportunity.