Biofuel is the most dangerous, 'magic bullet' illusion being peddled now.

http://www.energybulletin.net/28610.html

And the idea of using biofuel as the engine for the 'growth' that will allow poor and developing nations to 'bootstrap' themselves into the first world is a hideous joke- "Destroy your land, your communities, your ablilty to provide your own food so you can produce ethanol we in the rich world can pay you pennies for and burn.... it will create economic 'growth' and you'll be better off!"

And while we're on growth....

http://globalpublicmedia.com/lectures/461

Absolutely EVERYONE should watch/read this lecture and understand what growth really means.

It's rather sad and pathetic to consider Brazilian/third-world biofuel as some sort of "next step." It won't be. Capitalism will not run on biofuel. Why? Very simple (almost too simple): Biofuels will be far too expensive to develop and deliver. Do we destroy rainforests to have soybean and sugar crops with abysmal EROEI? Or do we wise-up beforehand?

The global capitalist system exists simply because we have (correction: had) a huge carbon energy pool, i.e., oil, which allowed this colossal growth -- far in excess of what any previous base energy resource allowed. Energy is a base resource that cannot be allowed to start climbing in price and complexity. Modern global capitalism gets its "lift" from cheap oil, and when that's over, good-bye lift, hello ground. I keep talking -- and getting roundly ignored -- hence my growing assurance that when the lift ends, we will not glide, but go nose-down into that ground -- after we waste precious time and resources on all the boondoggles in alternative energies.

Keep your heads down, Tropical Paradises! Please just quietly educate your children, and try not to attract notice from The Masters Of The Universe.

Let the creepy capitalists wreck your neighbors, but act stupid, and keep them from noticing you. In ten or fifteen years, you will be able to come out of hiding with clean hearts and smiles on your faces.

The all-knowing global exploiters will be dead, strangled by their own fumes. And the meek will inherit the Earth.