Personally, I hate the idea of using any biofuel that can potentially take away from human and animal consumption. If the aquifer issue isn’t as bad as once thought, my focus shifts to soil chemistry. Once the soil loses it’s nutrients to the point of depletion, it’s essentially worthless and that’s a problem if we get hungry and still want to drive. I know the farming community can do much to prevent this from occurring, but I’d rather not gamble my Cheezy Poofs on filling up someone’s SUV. Additionally, I’m not a huge fan of using industrial based fertilizers b/c Mosaic Company just has to produce more industrial acids to feed fertilizer demand, so you continue the negative feedback cycle.

As with any new technology, the 1st or 2nd generation technologies are usually outdated by the time it’s scaled up for mass production. So most of what we’ve seen thus far won’t have a substantial impact upon the “war effort” because it’s not scalable at this time.

The eventual solution will likely be a genetically engineered microbe that can survive & thrive in a fuel based environment and converts CO2 to ethanol or perhaps methane. Gene jockeys are already moving ahead with this process, and in 2 decades we will be designing basic microbes like you decorate a Mr. Potato Head. Just pick & click the enzymes you want, and a day later you’ve got a microbe customized to your specs.

Here is a TED Talk from Craig Venter discussing the current technologies. It’s 30 min long, but will blow your mind if you’re not a follower of modern GE trends.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKZ-GjSaqgo