I once put so much hope in biofuels as the savior of our energy future. Abundant sources or renewable resources growing right in our back yards. Slowly this notion has faded and the more I read, we are so far from having a real biofuel future, that we should probably concentrate on more viable options.

Corn ethanol turned out to be a bust due to the rising cost of corn and the stripping of a food resource. Cellulosic ethanol is still more energy in than out and algae ethanol could be the holy grail, but to date no one can make it work at a reasonable cost.

Coal remains king until we figure something out and quite frankly, I think we are barking up the wrong tree when it comes to biofuels.

very pessimistic. I agree that corn ethanol may have been a mistake, but throwing the baby out with the bathwater is never the answer. I think we should just refocus our attention away from food source ethanol and focus on the cellulosic, switch grass and algae ethanols. I think they could be viable sources eventually.

I think that biofuels are far better than the fossil fuel alternatives. I don't get why people don't like them. They are cleaner, cheaper and produced from renewable resources.

hold up.. cleaner? cheaper? please!. I will give you the renewable resource one, but the others are nominal improvements at best. burning any carbon based substance will produce CO2 as well as other toxins and greenhouse gasses. Biofuels are a stopgap at best. I will say that algae biofuels are a different story considering that they feed off of CO2 and other gases to grow and produce a cleaner fuel so it is a net gain, but still a fairly small one.

there seems to be a lot of mud slinging going on in here. Sure every new idea has its drawbacks and for centuries trial and error was the most acceptable way to foster human progress. Corn? maybe not the best idea as a fuel source. SO WHAT!. move on, find the next source, see we can apply the same idea to a non food source. wait a second. that is what is happening right now. Its not going to be an overnight solution people. Its not going to be one idea that saves us, its going to be many ideas with many variations and interpretations. We will make mistakes but we can't throw out a mediocre idea because it wasn't perfect. Something in it was worth it in the first place.

sure biofuels are still polluters, but less so than fossil fuels. I think its the lesser of two evils and I hope just a stop gap before we find a truly clean automotive fuel source that is viable on the commercial markets.