Humans have always relied on plants for fuel. It is only in the last 200 years that we have utilised fossil sources to provide our heating needs, drive our industrial processes, give us light and power our vehicles. In this short time the world has changed immeasurably but these sources of energy which have taken millions of years to form are now already beginning to diminish. The tremendous changes that fossil fuels have afforded have also bestowed an unfortunate legacy. We are now facing climate change at an unprecedented rate and to halt the onset of global warming we must attempt to turn the clocks back.

Growing crops to provide energy is not a new phenomenom. In the days before trains and motor cars we relied on transport by horses and these organic vehicles were powered by oats! The energy crops of today include some that are familiar such as oilseed rape and sugar beet for transport fuels and others that are less so such as willows and poplars grown as short rotation coppice (SRC) and miscanthus for heat and electricity.