Old `Ohi`a: Pat Hart thinks he may have found the oldest broadleaf trees in the Northern Hemisphere – right in his back yard. ...

Food or Fuel? “The amount of wheat needed to create enough ethanol to fill the fuel tank of a single SUV would feed one person for a whole year.” That statistic, cited by former Italian prime minister Romano Prodi in a speech last April, underscores the high human cost of biofuels.

Fuel or Fresh Water? To many, the solution to the food vs. fuel problem surrounding biofuel production lies with microalgae, a non-food crop that theoretically has the potential to yield huge amounts of biodiesel. But according to Hawai`i Natural Energy Institute researcher Michael Cooney, those believers, which include engineers and scientists, have not seriously considered the cost of water involved in turning microalgae into fuel.