In my view, the best direction for biofuels is to develop aviation biofuels. Biofuels for road transport will only ever contribute a small fraction of the world's requirements, due to land required to grow them. Even 2nd generation biofuels is not going to change that fact. I think electric cars are the way to go. The average car trip distance in the UK is 11km. Battery technology can now move cars for distances approaching 200km before recharging. This is approaching the maximum distance in 1 day. New materials will also make cars lighter, requiring less power to move them & recharging can take place overnight at periods of low load & little extra capacity will be required to charge the cars.
However, for aviation, batteries are not going to be possible & that's where biofuels can help. As aviation only makes up about 5% (very rough number!) of total fuel requirements, I think biofuels can satisfy this, without putting huge stress on land requirements.
I'm really pleased to see this article today & hope we see more developments in the area soon:
Virgin experiments with biofuels
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