A list entry pointed out this biofuel site, Planet Power, that makes a nuanced case for the production and use of biofuels. Most of the criticisms of biofuels are acknowledged and addressed at least in part. It makes informed and sometimes compelling arguments for biofuels. But the whole argument depends on a key assumption:

In determining the value of renewable energy sources, a key question must always be: What does a specific technology option displace on the integrated grid?

To answer this question, one must understand "basic terms" of (1) base load, (2) intermediate load, and (3) peaking load generating options.

Because of availability (number of hours and when the sun shines or the wind blows), solar and wind options are typically considered either intermediate or peaking technologies on an integrated resource grid. As such, wind and solar options will displace primarily natural gas generating units (where natural gas is by far the cleanest of fossil fuels compared to coal and oil).

Conversely, biomass energy and geothermal options are typically considered base load, and would primarily displace in much of the U.S., coal fired generation.

Biomass and geothermal energy systems are wildly different. Biomass is exactly the same as wind and solar power: they are all solar power but the harvesting methods vary.

Plants harvest solar power very inefficiently, capturing only a tiny percentage of the energy available, and only during the times when the photo and thermo periods are adequate, and are inherently variable. But they store the harvested energy as biomass. Wind is solar energy too, but it is stored as kinetic energy in the atmosphere. It is even more variable. Direct solar power systems are the most efficient of the three solar based energy systems.

Advocates for wind and solar have proposed ways to store the intermittent power for use during non-peak times and so qualify as base load power too. Such hacks add cost and decrease reliability, but the argument continues about which of the solar based energy systems has the greatest merit.

Geothermal power is nothing like this. It is rock steady at all times baring equipment failure since it depends in no way on any variable energy source. It is more like nuclear power than biomass.

Seen in this way there is really no way to defend most biofuels. The only biomass that is truly available is that which is a waste disposal problem. The idea of growing new biomass expressly for use as biofuel is nonsensical no matter how enlightened the growing methods. Those same methods would be better applied to the production of food.

That's where biomass advocates always stumble. They have good technologies that produce useful products in benign ways but there isn't enough proper feedstock to be significant so they manufacture convoluted arguments designed to somehow make it OK for them to commit the cardinal sin of competing for land, water and nutrients needed to feed a hungry world. But, they even have an argument for this issue:

it's important to note that our biomass research and commercial demonstration is using environmentally damaged lands, such as closed mining sites. According to NASA Scientists, one-fifth of the carbon dioxide released annually from fossil-fuel emissions could be "sequestered" by planting energy crops on marginal lands of this type. Hopefully, our work can help create a "Global Model", where thousands of acres now largely considered wastelands can have productive agriculture and environmental use.

How can they afford to do this? If the cost of developing such land for agricultural use is too high then how is that this business model can propose doing so? They are actually farming the government. They have a suite of free money hacks: Production Tax Credits, Liberalized Tax Depreciation, Guaranteed Federal Financing and Carbon Credits, Biomass Crop Assistance Program, etc. Some are anticipated, some are temporary "economic stimulus" funds, and others are currently available.

It's a fine plan, one of the nicest grant proposals I've seen. It makes no economic, agronomic or energy sense but it truly does a careful job of identifying and addressing all of the legitimate objections so long as you accept the two glaring defects that biomass is really no different or better than other ways to leverage solar power, and that the only way to do it is with massive subsidies.

It's a fine demonstration of why government programs putatively targeted to emissions issues will accomplish nothing. If the sort of knowledge and skill that these people obviously possess was used for constructive purposes society would truly be improved. Instead, they produce elegant nonsense.