Biofuels the right way

The problem with biofuels is we have to use farmland to grow fuel and not food. What we need to do it find a way to produce fuel without taking land out of cultivation. The solution is as close as your front yard. There are 32 million acres of lawn in the USA alone, which is about half the acreage given to corn. Yes switch grass and cellulose ethanol are part of the answer, but that still requires farm or unused marginal land to be converted to agriculture. Lawns are already under cultivation and mostly wasted space. However, if Scotts or the other tuff grass companies got together they could breed a grass that could be used for biofuel feed stock and still be a nice lawn. People would cut their grass and leave the clippings in special bins on the curb, once or twice a month a truck would pick up the clippings and take it for conversion. Or people could take the clippings to recycling centers. I think a high cellulose grass would be the best, but a grass high in lipids could work too. Yes, this is far less efficient than growing grass on a massive scale, but lawns are not about practicality, so recovering any value from the waste contributes. According to a lawn services industry survey Americans spend >$1,000 per household per year on lawn care, but they only spend ~$2,100 a year for gasoline (assuming they burn around 10 gallons a week).

Also, by using a non-food feedstock for fuel it should also help reduce food prices, since the corn can be feed to people and animals, and grass feed to yeast. The issue is getting people to used chemicals that won’t hurt the yeast or bacteria. Organic grass would be best but I am sure that Scott’s would come out with companion treatments to their grasses. The government could encourage this by giving people tax credits for replanting their yards and the companies processing the fuel share the carbon credits.