I find it extremely hard to believe that the miracle biomass plants such as switchgrass can be harvested en masse without consequences -- or external chemical inputs. The laws of physics, and the laws of soil, altogether inconvenient, continue to apply.
Of course! They always have and they always will. Only within the last 60-70 years have farmers fallen for the bill of goods sold to them of being able to take without suitable return.
The soil web is life, literally. Those who think they can get around that fact are doomed to find out the hard way, and will take a lot of other people with them. TANSTAAFL applies here, as to all else.
From what I understand from the people who know this, using things like switchgrass is a way to use less desirable land for fuel so the prime land can be used for food production. You still have to feed the land and return sufficient nutrients, or even that isn't going to work.
But there seem to be a lot of people who have to learn the hard way, and the learning of it is slow in coming.
Sue
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