pic: bbcA common theme running through current green news is biofuels – ethanol and biodiesel. Whilst many countries have already begun planting fields of alternative crops – corn-based ethanol and soy or rapeseed-based biodiesel - as a solution to concerns about global warming and our over-reliance on oil, this rabid scramble does accelerate the conversion of tropical rainforests into farm and grazing land, and there are other questions raised as to just whether or not biofuels are the future...

Not all biofuels are created equal: in fact, depending on how they are produced, biofuels like ethanol and biodiesel can be environmentally destructive, raise the price of food, and even hurt efforts to tackle global warming. [watthead]

New research says biofuels a mistake: Western politicians have paid lip service to climate change by setting CO2 emission targets, which they believe they can meet with increased use of biofuels. But, just how much greener are biofuels? [hippyshopper]...

Forget biofuels – burn oil and plant forests instead: It sounds counterintuitive, but burning oil and planting forests to compensate is more environmentally friendly than burning biofuel. [newscientist]

Seeing red: palm oil biodiesel - Now it is increasingly difficult to ignore the mounting body of scientific evidence that palm oil plantations in Indonesia and Malaysia, rather than preserving the environment are in fact actively destroying it. By subsidising biofuels, European governments have artificially raised demand for palm oil in Europe, and accelerated the destruction of huge areas of rainforest in South East Asia. [alternative energy]

Weeds may be the next big energy source: Plants that can be grown for fuel are often touted as a vast, clean energy source - except by those who say precious food is being diverted into gas tanks, and that biofuel crops are using up dwindling land and water. Enter willow, hemp and switchgrass. [IOL]