Answers and analysis needed to guide the use of biofuels as a renewable energy source

Excerpt

Discussions of biofuels, bioenergy, and bio-based products are ubiquitous these days. The tone of the dialog ranges from support of grain-based ethanol as the near-term solution to agriculture's and rural America's problems, to thoughtful discussions of the complex issues that must be addressed to realize the long-term potential for more sustainable bio-based energy and products. Many important questions need to be addressed.

For example, who will realize the economic benefits? Will there be opportunities for jobs and value to be added to the agricultural producers and rural communities, or will policies support bioenergy crops as another low-margin commodity crop that provides most of its benefits to the processors and marketers? If the model for future energy systems is large, centralized processing, similar to what we have with our current energy model, then the economics will likely drive the market for biomass crops toward low margin production. However, if technologies are developed that can meet on-farm or rural community energy requirements locally, then more of the economic benefits may be realized in rural areas.

What kind of agriculture will our energy policies encourage? Will the policies continue to encourage expanded production of major commodities, as we have seen in the 2007 …