Bio-fuel is coming out of the woodworks, literally! An up and comer in natural energy resources, the jartropha plant is sprouting in the field.

In his State of the Union address last night, President Bush stressed the importance of renewable energy and clean, alternative fuels. So why am I still so skeptical?

Corn-based ethanol is an environmentally friendly solution to our reliance on oil, right? Not if it creates food shortages in the world's poorest countries.

Reynolds, Indiana doesn't look like the town of the future. But the little Midwestern town has one thing going for it. Hog manure. Lots of it. Until last year, that didn't seem like a plus for the town where hogs outnumber people 3 to 1. But then the state government got the idea to turn the town's biggest problem into its biggest asset. The result? BioTown, USA.

Colorado's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) based in Golden, is the home of the nation's only large-scale pilot plant for the production of ethanol from biomass. Engineers and scientists at NREL lead the way in research on renewable energy technologies, from photovoltaics (solar cells) to wind to renewable fuels. NREL received a surge of media attention early this year when 32 staff positions were eliminated and then hastily reinstated just in time for President Bush's visit to NREL in February. All of this followed the president's State of the Union address in which he announced that "America is addicted to oil" and pledged a 22 percent increase in investments into clean energy. NREL's Andy Aden told LIME about the promises and limitations of cellulosic ethanol.

Scarlett O'Hara's Dad said it best —"the land is all that matters and in America that is what sets us apart from the rest of the world." 

Ethanol is as hot as an internal combustion engine these days. Judging by the press it's been getting, embracing ethanol seems to be as American as setting off fireworks on the 4th of July. But there are numerous complexities to the issue, particularly as it relates to ethanol sources, farming, production infrastructure, and current economic dynamics. Ethanol presents many new opportunities, but it’s not going to alter the realities of the global marketplace.

I'm never quite sure what to say when people start talking about ethanol. Is it a useful alternative fuel that we should be putting to greater use? Or a boondoggle - taxpayer money wasted on subsidies to farmers for a fuel that will never save us from oil? So I was happy to see a Q & A on ethanol in the Sunday New York Times Automobile section.