Remember Brazil and sugar cane? How about Britain and tall grass?
Biomass.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060525/sc_nm/energy_britain_biomass_dc
"Giant grass to get larger role in energy supply By Nigel Hunt
Thu May 25, 3:45 AM ET
LONDON (Reuters) - Fields of swaying giant grass and patchwork patterns of willow plantations could become common sights as Britain turns to crops for heating and electricity to tackle the effects of global warming.
"The main difference is the height (compared with conventional crops)," said Angela Karp, deputy head of the plant and invertebrate ecology division at Rothamsted Research center.
"People are used to looking at certain landscapes, such as fields of cereals, and this will change," she said.
The impact on the English landscape -- which has an almost mythical status in the nation's literature and psyche -- could be similar to the change after rapeseed acreage expanded in the 1970s and 1980s, covering the countryside with fields full of distinctive bright yellow flowers.
The use of crops to generate electricity is touted by some experts as one of the best ways to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, blamed by many scientists for global warming.
Biomass -- products from forestry, energy crops and a variety of other materials which might otherwise be treated as waste -- generates about 1 percent of Britain's electricity and provides a similar proportion of heat generation."
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