Genetic engineering has proved to be a boon for corn and soybeans. The same technology for potential biofuel stocks is being held up by court challenges. "The genetically engineered feedstock that is closest to commercialization, a eucalyptus tree, is now ensnared in a lawsuit," Philip Brasher of the Des Moines Register reports. "And government regulations also are a challenge, making it difficult to even field-test biotech versions of potential biofuel feedstocks, including switchgrass, a crop that could be grown in Iowa, experts say."
"Something has to be done to make this sane," Steven Strauss, a tree breeder at Oregon State University who has conducted research for the company that developed the eucalyptus tree, told Brasher. "This is too big a tool to put it on the shelf." Genetic engineering allows scientists to add traits to plants that would increase tolerance to drought or resist cold temperatures and is faster than conventional breeding. "I do not see how we're going to make the advancements that we need to make without biotechnology," said John Heissenbuttel, co-director of the Council for Sustainable Biomass Production, a coalition of companies and environmental groups working on standards for growing energy crops.
Critics of the biotech eucalyptus tree say the U.S. Department of Agriculture "has been too lenient on biotechnology and don't think the tree's potential for biofuel makes it worth putting it into production," Brasher writes. "They say the tree, which is engineered to tolerate colder temperatures than the tropical climate where it normally grows, could take over Southern forests and uses too much water." The Sierra Club and other groups filed a lawsuit in a Florida federal court to force USDA into a more rigorous environmental impact study of the tree. (Read more)
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