A problem with the ethanol energy solution
I'm sure somebody must have noticed this already, but if we do come up with a decent way to process crop waste into fuel, aren't we burning the stuff that normally gets plowed back into the soil, helping the fertility?
Essentially, we will have moved from more careful soil handling to the equivalent of "slash and burn." While this certainly has been done a lot in the past, guess what's then used to make up the nutrient difference?
Right. Petroleum-based fertilizers.