Word: biofuel
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Mulholland backs that conclusion. Our inland waterways can barely handle the nitrogen fertilizer we're already using in order to grow record yields of corn and other crops. Truly ramping up biofuel production - unless it can be done in a way that uses much less fertilizer, perhaps with experimental techniques that harness plant waste matter instead of food crops - might overwhelm that system. "We have to be very careful about biofuels in terms of what kind of crops we grow and where we grow them," says Mulholland. "The great expansion of corn could be a real problem." It would...
Others saw in the devastation a blank slate on which Greensburg could build back better by building back greener--with energy-efficient homes and offices powered by Kansas' abundant wind and biofuel resources. The community could become a mecca for environmentalists, drawing green businesses and new jobs. Daniel Wallach, an entrepreneur from a nearby town, formed the nonprofit Greensburg GreenTown shortly after the tornado to promote this transformation. "It could be a living laboratory," he says, "to demonstrate to the rest of the country and the world what a town of the future could look like...
...Still, there are no plans to make commercial air fleets run on coconuts. In fact, biofuel producers in general have had a tough couple of years. As food prices soar worldwide, people are growing ever more worried that biofuel production can drive up the prices of staple foods. Tens of thousands of Mexicans marched in January 2006, for example, to protest the rising price of corn, used in the U.S. to make ethanol. Virgin and partners claim that their airplane fuel is, as Branson says, "completely environmentally and socially sustainable." It's not made from staple-food crops or from...
...Down the line, say Branson and Imperium Renewables CEO John Plaza, biofuel producers are more interested in jatropha, a thorny plant that grows well on non-agricultural land in Latin America and Africa. They're also interested in farming algae, which Branson calls "the jet fuel of the future." Development of those feedstocks does look promising, but commercial mass production is still years off. And getting regulatory approval for the new jet fuel could take several years as well. So if biofuel ever takes off in aviation, it will likely be a decade before it has any noticeable impact...
...building more efficient airplanes. Boeing's 787 Dreamliner, once it's finally shipped out to its buyers, is expected to burn 20% less fuel than similar-sized planes - and that plane will be in commercial use in just a few months. As priorities go in aviation sustainability, "Right now [biofuel] will be very low," Virgin Atlantic CEO Steve Ridgway tells TIME. But with fears that the days of oil are numbered, it only makes sense that a business would try to diversify its raw materials in the long term. And cutting overall industry emissions will be no easy task...