h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6252594.stm

Grain says: "The numbers involved are mind-boggling. The Indian government is talking of planting 14 million hectares of land with jatropha."

Utter dingo's kidneys. Jatropha is being planted for biofuels because (a) it grows anywhere, even in soils unsuited for anything else because they are virtually desert and (b) the oil it produces is poisonous and can't be eaten anyway, so nobody in their right mind would turn over fertile farmland to jatropha production.

I'd never heard of Grain before this ill-advised intervention. i think we have another Brent Spar fiasco in the making here.

There is, confusingly, an eco-group in Ireland called Grian (Irish for Sun, pronounced GREE-un, acronym for Greenhouse Ireland Action Network) and they object to the excessive hope placed in biofuels, on the grounds that the amount of land needed to fuel present consumption is just too much.

But if this stuff grows where other crops don't, it sounds good to me.

I agree that we shouldn't place too much hope in biofuels, but you don't wean a baby off milk by immediately forcing nothing but vegetables down its throat. Same for petrol: the process of adjustment has to be gradual.

It's the 'headless heart' mentality of these people that riles me. *Anything* that involves scientific reasoning is *de facto* flawed, and somehow it's perfectly acceptable logic to oppose initiatives without having to come up with any solutions of one's own. Well, that's not the way I work, thanks.

>*Anything* that involves scientific reasoning is *de facto* flawed

--then you're talking about someone else. The Greens I belong to have one faction that is anti-GM for instance, but that faction is not doing well in the party at the moment.

I know, I know, "Splitters!"

Read that McDonald's propose to recycle used frying oil from their 900 UK outlets and to use the end-product as a fuel in their fleet of delivery vehicles, thereby reducing pollution levels by 78%.

I remember about 2 years ago a farmer in Wales getting prosecuted for doing the same.

All depends on who you are I suppose.