The comment about biopolymers contaminating nature was a jibe.   Du Pont has had, um environmental contamination issues before... I just felt like it might have been a safe assumption.  It was not very scientific of me to look at past precident as a future behavior indicator.

As for whether or not burning corn is green and good, I am not sure.   Assuming that it was a superlitive in an life cycle analysis over other forms of heating, and assumign one gets the embodied energy data reveiling that this is the best use for corn VS downcycling into ash I would be looking for a corn burner that met or exceeded USEPA emmissions standards.  Not sure if there is a specific one for corn burners (our regs are way to old (hello clean air act) but there are regs for fireplaces.  They require things like catalytic converters to dramatically lower particulate emissions and flue gasses.

I dont know if burning corn or burning anything can make us leaders.  Burning coal mos def wont.  Burning fuel rods mos def wont.  Burning trash mos def wont.  Burning oil mos def wont.  Burning the midnight oil... that just might.

I will say that I have noticed a big increase in many sources of heat around here, especially here on the north coast.  Pellet wood heaters keep popping up as well.  I think they sell them at home depot these days.   Any more home depot is like Wild Oats.  FSC lumber, low voc paint, pellet stoves, solar tube lights, energy star this and that.   WOOO WOO they are greening up like my grocery store.       Greening up like wall mart.

maybe i can get a job writing about these things? 

XOXOXO

ZM

The coal industry is touting a plan to transform millions of tons of coal into diesel and other liquid fuels - an expensive, inefficient process that releases large quantities of carbon dioxide, the worst global warming pollutant, into the air. Instead of offering viable answers to the critical problem of global warming, this senseless industry "solution" would exacerbate the problem: Relying on coal-derived liquid as an alternative to oil-based fuels could nearly double global warming pollution for every gallon of transportation fuel that is produced and used.
Relying on coal-derived liquid as an alternative fuel could nearly double global warming pollution for every gallon of transportation fuel produced and used.
In the first place, if a slew of coal-to-liquid plants came on-line, coal-mining activity itself would have to increase, bringing with it a new mother lode of hazardous and acidic waste, contaminated groundwater, and clearcutting of native hardwood forests for mountaintop removal - to name but a few of mining's destructive environmental and human-health effects. Second, carbon dioxide emissions could nearly double using coal liquids instead of natural gas and petroleum, at the same, critical moment when scientists are saying we need to act immediately to cut emissions by 60 to 80 percent by the middle of the century in order to keep harmful impacts of global warming to a minimum. Projected impacts of such global warming, if we do not cut emissions rapidly and definitively, include cataclysmic biodiversity loss through extinction and mass famine-induced starvation among human populations.
The total emissions rate for oil and gas fuels is about 27 pounds of carbon dioxide per gallon, counting both production and use, while the estimated total emissions from coal-derived fuel is more like 50 pounds of carbon dioxide per gallon -- nearly twice as much.

And even if the carbon dioxide from coal-to-liquid plants were somehow stopped from entering the atmosphere, coal liquids would still pollute more than current fuel sources do. Since policies that establish strict limits on carbon dioxide are necessary and inevitable, it would be the height of folly to invest in just another technology that drives us further down the path to dependency on carbon fuels. Investment in coal-to-liquids production would finally be left stranded, and the social and economic costs of irrational energy policy would be born by all of us. What we need are straightforward, clean energy sources involving renewables like wind, solar, and biofuels.

From: http://beyondoil.nrdc.org/news/gas-from-coal.php (contains a great video too)