Opponents of biomass and other energy crops cite disruption of the food supply due to economic incentives for farmers to plant energy crops instead of food as a reason to look elsewhere for energy needs.
Why not plant energy crops in the median between divided highways. There could be a lot of unused acreage that could grow grasses and other biomass crops. The DOT could make it economically advantageous to use that land rather than lands currently used for food or wildlife habitat.
Transporting equipment and harvest across the highway might be an issue, but does not seem insurmountable.
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Or how about all those thousands of acres leased to oil companies for exploration that aren't being used for anything whatsoever in the vast majority cases?
Add on: If they're not going to be drilled, they may as well be used to produce energy in an alternate way.
homebray, I expect you're more tuned-in to the biomass-as-fuel issue than me, but I often do see them putting up hay in the medians here. But to sell it competes with local farmers, which isn't necessarily good government.
As biomass, I'm not sure what you mean by 'energy' crops--seems to me that anything would burn and make energy--even roadside litter--just let nature decide what crops to grow. I think the link that's missing is a big semi-truck with a hydraulically articulated arm and a vacuum mower, to cut and suck-up all of the weeds for burning. I've thought about doing a why-not for that.
Also, with hay, it has to be cut, then dry a day, otherwise, exothermic decay causes it to risk fire. I don't know what you do about that with the biomass-semi
One good thing is burning weeds will produce CO2, but the same Co2 would've been produced if they were laying in the ditch decaying.
People are already working on methods of using cellulose as a fuel source. If this becomes successful, than waste material from food crops can be used for fuel. Plants from medians could be used also, but the amount of material there would be tiny compared to the food crop waste.