I think the answer here is that you don't necessarily need to be tying up valuable acreage to pursue biofuels, what you need to do is borrow some kid's electric train set, and study it carefully.
Gain a thorough understanding of the locomotive, as electric propulsion is a great concept to add to your mental toolbox, but then look for the flatbed cars. This miniature model is a scale representation of the full size version that runs on our rails daily. A large, rectangular, hard flat surface for loading cargo and transporting it. Now, take your miniature, and put an edge on it, that is continuous around the sides.
Now, 'fill' your flatbed car with potting soil. If your edge was only 1/4-1/8th inch, the full scale would be almost a foot of dirt. 1 foot deep by 10 feet wide by 40 feet long, approximately.
Something to consider. Now, go rent Silent Running, one of Bruce Dern's early movies.
Not as good as Driver, but more relevant to this discussion. In Silent Running, he and his shipmates are on a Holy Quest to save the varmit. They have eco-ships, and have been told to leave the earth. Rather than kill the eco-pods when order, his character kills his shipmates instead, and goes drifting off into space, surviving a trip through Saturn's rings. What can you say, it was the 70's. I want one of those runabout cars though, they looked like fun. But, that's another story.
Anyway, the above waste of your time is a rough representation of a mobile garden planter, big enough to really do something with.
You can make usable potting soil by dredging up muck off the ocean floor, mixing it with bull stuff(not the political variety, although Teddy Kennedy can finance his retirement by continuing the public speaking circuit with a nearby windmill to absorb the resulting wind energy), stirring vigorously, letting the little microbes do their microbe thing, probably throw in some sand and whatever else you've got handy, and then Ph'ing it, and planting your corn or your sugar cane or whatever you've got, there. Small scale, large scale, don't have to cut down the rain forest etc. Making biofuels work means eliminating the excuses and solving the problems, and getting it all worked down to the scale that an individual person can then carry out for themselves, even. Educate the public, give them the legal permission to do this stuff, and the problem will start to solve itself. Part of the need for energy independence is also the need to get away from the government taxes which ramp up prices and keep the whole sorry business going. Given the choice between wars I consider to be pointless frauds against the public and investing time, effort and energy in bona-fide greentech development, I'll take the greentech. Better the science than the fraud and war profiteering.