“…Cultivation of plant biomass as a source of hydrocarbons or chemical feedstocks has received considerable interest recently (Buchanan et al, 1978a,b;Calvin, 1977Calvin, ,1979Calvin, ,1980Calvin, , 1982. This alternative energy production technology, however, has not attained scale-up development, due in part to a limited data base (Ward, 1982), relatively high energy inputs and production costs (Weisz and Marshall, 1979), and supplies of conventional fuels in developed, industrialized countries. However, in lesser developed arid and semiarid regions of the world, human resources and land are abundant while conventional supplies of energy and food are short (Mann et al, 1977;Hadley and Szarek, 1981).…”