Biofuels, facts and figures.

First, the net energy ratio of corn-based ethanol (useful energy divided by the energy required to produce a unit of ethanol) is at best 1.25 but in practice a lot worse. Some have calculated a ratio less than one, meaning that it takes more energy to produce ethanol from corn than the energy content of the fuel.Because of very large government subsidies (see more below) the growth in corn-based ethanol has been nothing short of meteoric. From 2000 to 2010, ethanol production in the United States from the fermentation of corn, increased from 1.6 to 13.2 billion gallons per year. In 2011 this is expected to grow to almost 14 billion gallons. Congressional mandates have decreed that by 2022, biofuels blended into the US gasoline pool will increase to 35 billion gallons per year.

A site called Fuel Fix.  Ths means that biofuels today likely cause more CO2 emissions than fossil fuels.   Our best approach to global warming at the moment, is paint your roof white and work on fossil fuel; efficiency.

That does not mean no production scale plants, it means experimental production, small scale and work the inefficiencies. The other point is that corn may not be the best feedstock, but it is easy to mass produce.

The current technical problem is mass production of an fuel adapted feedstock without contamination.  Solar efficiency, efficiency per square meter of sun is less important rather than availability of clean water. Biofuels can be solar inefficient as long as feedstock supply is cheap. For both solar electric and solar biofuel, we have plenty of land space.