Going back to the late 1990's I sold separation equipment both into biodiesel and ethanol production. The big issues back then were scalability and price stability. The petroleum refineries in this nation have been paid off for thirty years. Therefore, when oil based energy prices are depressed it is painful for them but not the kiss of death. Now consider having just built a 800 million dollar ethanol plant and fuel prices drop to $1/ gallon. This has been a big sticking point because the small scale version of these technologies are not economically viable. Here I think we can build small local plants without huge capital inputs. This also is better from a EROEI standpoint since the raw materials used would be those produced locally and no need for multi-state transport to feed a gigantic facility.
All good things that separate us from traditional alternative fuel production.
>> Just some random thoughts <<
edit- We need to get fairwaywood over here...I am trying to get RB out of my life......