As the United States attempts to back away from corn-based ethanol production, it may be sugarcane plantations that step up to fill the global demand for biofuels.

With a far shorter carbon payback time—that is, the time it takes to reduce the amount of carbon emitted in clearing the land and growing the crop— than corn ethanol production, and hardy, long established varieties of the plant. While climate and soil conditions limit the areas of the United States that can successfully grow the crop, many other nations, from Australia to Guatemala, have been singled out by producers as potential growth hot spots.

While I appreciate that recent food prices have had less of an effect on the price of sugarcane, since its production for consumption is largely as a refined sweetener or glucose source for alcohol, it still seems pretty clear to me that biofuels are tracking in a direction other than traditional feed stocks. 

Sugarcane may offer some economic flexibility to existing crop operations, allowing producers to take advantage of energy price crunches, but for the most part, I feel algae, cellulosic, and grass biofuels will dominate future markets.