Cellulosic ethanol is made from the fibers of plants. It does not require the use of cropland.

Switchgrass is the major biomass material being studied today, due to its high levels of cellulose. Cellulose, however, is contained in nearly every natural, free-growing plant, tree, and bush, in meadows, forests, and fields all over the world without agricultural effort or cost needed to make it grow.

It can also be made from wood scrap, agricultural leftovers, and more.

Earth2Tech has a highly informative post profiling eleven companies currently building cellulosic plants in the US, including Bluefire Ethanol, who plan to create ethanol from landfill waste.

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This was its biggest single day jump ever, almost $11, to $138. Jim Rogers says oil prices could rise for years.

There is no supply of oil unless you - somebody can tell us where the oil is, the bull market in oil has years to go despite new corrections which may or may not come.

If it goes to $300, there will be drilling at Buckingham Palace. I don’t know how high it’s going to go, Betty, but unless somebody discovers a lot of oil very quickly and very accessible areas, the facts are the world is running out of oil - out of known oil - known oil reserves.

Sue’s car arrived today from Connecticut. When we moved, we towed my car behind us on a Ryder truck, then had hers shipped. We booked the move through a major car carrier who, as they always do, farmed out to an independent trucker. I asked our driver today, how many miles per gallon do you get when the truck is full. About 5, he said.

His trip across the country took two weeks, as car carriers criss-cross the country picking up and dropping off cars. So, figure 400 miles a day, not always a full load, maybe averaging 7 mpg, that’s 800 gallons at probably $4.75 a gallon. So, gas cost him probably $3800. Carriers hold 6-7 cars. We paid the company $950, maybe they paid him $800 and he did the equivalent of 7 cars coast to coast for $5600. So figure he grossed $1800 for two weeks work, not counting food, lodging, repairs, truck payments and insurance. (BTW, a new car carrier can cost over $200,000)

So, even though my numbers are guesstimates, you can see that the cost of diesel is absolutely killing their profit margin. Independent truckers are really getting squeezed, but the soaring cost of diesel transportation can and will cause the price of everything to rise.

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Pluperfecter says high gas prices increasingly mean we will communicate and conduct business more on the Net, and less face-to-face.

Now is the time for business to master live streaming video, video demos, podcasting, VoIP, teleconferencing, blogging, and social media networking. Skilled professionalism in these tools is now moving from peripheral and rare…to mission critical and universal.

This has been a steady trend for a while, but high gas prices will definitely accelerate the process. I plan to attend the geek conference Gnomedex this year and expect most everyone in the audience will be live blogging and twittering what’s happening, both for those present and for the virtual audience as well. Gnomedex streams the conference live, so someone on the Net can watch it and the Twitter stream at the same time, in real time. Except for the ability to schmooze, it will almost be like being there.

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Whether you’re new to options or a seasoned trader wanting ideas and strategies for trades, check out Options News Network. They have short, well-produced, informative videos covering all facets of options trading, including breaking news in the current market.

The primary advantage of options is leverage. You can make (and lose) money in options much faster than in stocks, and for much less money invested too. A 10% move in one day in a stock is highly unusual, yet such moves can easily happen with options. I’ve had options that moved up 50-100% in one day. Other advantage is you can make money if a stock price is falling down. (You can also do this by shorting stocks, but again, options cost less and, unlike with shorting, your risk is not limitless.)

ONN.tv is impressive. They have a number of educational videos for those new to options as well as hardcore advice for traders, and the videos are short and fun to watch.

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Breakthrough Blog has a fascinating post focusing on two bloggers from India who challenge the asceticism and anti-modernism of Gandhi, paralleling that with the similar views of the ascetic wing of the environmental movement

A few quotes to give the flavor.

When they hear Western environmentalist lionize Gandhi and moralize against coal burning in India, they hear the hypocritical rich wanting to deny prosperity for the poor.

As I learned more about him, I was less inspired by Gandhi’s view that India should embrace poverty, religion, and tradition against modern prosperity and freedom.

The problem with asceticism is simply this: asceticism is a rejection of the world around us. Asceticism places the concept (of nirvana) over the tangible (people).

“I don’t support conscious suffering,” Arduous writes, before quoting from Gandhi’s chilling, open letter urging the British people to give into the Nazis. “Let them take possession of your beautiful island, with your many beautiful buildings,” Gandhi counseled. “You will give all these, but neither your souls nor your minds.” It was a chilling coup de grace to nostalgic Western views of eco-Gandhi.

We can not and will not solve the problems of global warming and peak oil by rejecting the modern world and technology. Passivity is not the answer, nor is trying to retreat to a supposedly bucolic past that never existed in the first place. Rather, action and using the technological tools we have is how we will solve them.

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New legislation in Germany is making geothermal electricity a viable option for the first time. Germany’s support of solar energy, mostly in the form of incentives and high return for consumers who sell excess solar power back to the grid, has made it a world powerhouse in solar energy generation and solar panel manufacturing. Now it promises to surge ahead in geothermal electricity generation.

Let’s hope President Obama implements full-tilt R&D into renewables in the US, with subsidies for early adopters. In the process of going to a clean energy economy, millions of new jobs will be created, as will a multitude of new industries. Private enterprise and venture capital in the US are making major moves towards greentech. It’s time for the US government to do the same. Clearly, many other governments already are.

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