Today in Biofuels Opinion: “It should be obvious to everyone but a few misguided advocates that ILUC (indirect land use change) is not ready for prime time.”

Marc Gunther, In search of the perfect biofuel : “Not all feedstocks are created equal. I knew that, of course, but the variations in productivity are dramatic. In terms of gallons of fuel that can be produced per acre, according to Aristides Patrinos, the president of a company called Synthetic Genomics, sugar cane and switch grass outperform corn and Jatropha. Still, his company, which was started by Craig Venter, is excited about Jatropha because it yields a high quality oil, grows in poor soils and can live in semi-arid regions.

Reuters: “The U.S. biofuels industry would be hamstrung if government regulators choose to use unfair and untested formulas that hold it responsible for greenhouse gases from crops overseas, ethanol groups said on Thursday. U.S. and California environmental regulators included indirect land use change overseas in formulas that measure greenhouse gases from biofuels in comparison to emissions from petroleum.

“It should be obvious to everyone but a few misguided advocates that ILUC (indirect land use change) is not ready for prime time,” Tom Buis of Growth Energy, a pro-ethanol trade group, told a House Agriculture Committee hearing.

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