Detailed article about biofuels, you can view it at www.timesonline.co.uk.
An excerpt:
"Biofuels: Fields of dreams
We can run our cars on corn, sugar cane or wheat: limitless cheap energy grown on our doorstep. But are biofuels the answer to exhausted oil wells or just another nightmare scenario?
John Anderson is motoring with chip fat. Sir Rob Margetts swears by fizzy
drinks and chicken feed. George Bush is banking on corn. Everyone, from pub
to parliament, knows we’re going to have to do something about transport
fuel. Oil prices have already passed the threshold of pain, and emissions
targets for greenhouse gases will not be met unless we wean ourselves off
petrol.
The solution is both easy and obvious. In place of fossil energy – the power
of ancient sunlight – we can recover the solar energy locked up in field
crops, which, unlike mineral oils, we can endlessly replenish. With plant
oils in the tank, we will ride to work on sunbeams.
And yet “biofuels” have fallen precipitously from grace. In January, two
official reports – one from the Royal Society, one from a committee of MPs –
did more than just cast doubts on their efficacy: they blew them away.
Widespread conversion to plant-based fuels, they said, would increase rather
than reduce the output of greenhouse gas, and would take food from the
mouths of the poor. And yet…"