Quote:
Originally Posted by Caltex
Switch grass. It is natural to all of North America and grows in abundance even without our intervention.
The Great Plains are pretty much full of it.
It's very easy to grow, can grow in land unsuitable for farming, doesn't need to be watered, and needs only be planted once.
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Exactly. The thing is, current crops used for making ethanol directly compete with crops used for food - corn being the most known one. Most of the land that you can grow corn on very well is already taken, so everytime a corn plantation is used to make corn for ethanol, you are sort of taking the corn away from the food supply. With switch grass this is not really the case, since as Caltex said it grows anywhere and does therefore only marginally compete for land with foodcrops. And it doesn't need any fertilisers either.