The first annual BioMass conference, attended by biofuels researchers, manufacturers, equipment suppliers, and farmers, is underway here at the Minneapolis Convention Center. Prime on the agenda in the opening session this morning was a question lately blaring from headlines, for instance in a story in today's New York Times: can we grow crops for converting into fuel without catastrophically upsetting the world's food supply?
The problem is the focus on food crops for ethanol production. There is a plant, easily grown on poor soil with minimal fertilizer, AND it can produce 20 times more ethanol per acre than corn. Hemp. Oh, yeah, I forgot, the government won't let them grow hemp here.
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