Another reason against biofuels - invasive species

[include]

Nations should avoid planting biofuel crops that have a high risk of becoming invasive species, a report warns.
A study by the Global Invasive Species Programme (GISP) said only a few countries have systems in place to assess the risk or contain an outbreak.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Fuel crops 'pose invasion risk'

[bruce]

It is interesting that many of the non-food crops are invasive. But is that a bad thing, if they are invasive they should grow vigorously, which means that the yields should be (potentially at least) high.

Switch grass is also interesting, there has been research which shows that the prairie is more productive of biofuels than switch grass alone.

[Cricket Tragic]

Indeed, fast growing plant species that are highly tolerant of environmental stresses and able to produce large quantities of seed and very useful for both pastures and biofuels, simply because they produce lots of biomass with next to no looking after. The trouble is that these characteristics are the same as those that make invasive weeds.

The real dangers arise when fledgling industries that have no real economic basis go broke. The growers simply walk off the land and let it go. This has been seen with quite a few new animal industries (ostriches and emus come to mind immediately) and plant industries (remember sisal?, giant reed?, more ornamental plants than I can think of?). Once the damage is done, there are no funds from the industry to clean up the problem. Better to do a risk assessment first and keep the likely worst offenders out.

[spadlet]

On the other hand, the removal of invasive species such as sycamore from SSSI sites presents a potential source of biofuel.