Via Tresler, here's a neat little start-up: Solazyme. They made jet-fuel out of algae:

Solazyme’s algal-derived aviation fuel as analyzed by the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), one of the nations leading fuel analytical laboratories, passed the eleven “most challenging specifications needed to meet the ASTM D1655 standard for Aviation Turbine Fuel. The tested areas included the key measurements for density, thermal oxidative stability, flashpoint, freezing point, distillation and viscosity among others. Of the eleven tested parameters, the Solazyme aviation fuel passed the ASTM D1655 requirements for every measurement. Therefore, the Solazyme algae-based aviation kerosene has passed the biggest hurdles needed to successfully develop a commercial and military jet fuel fully consistent with existing engines and infrastructure” as stated in the SwRI report.

President Obama should give those guys a phat Pentagon contract to get things scaling. Swords into plowshares, bitches.

There are real challenges w/driving biofuels at the expense of human food, but most of the plausible feed-stocks that could be taken to scale (not fucking corn, much to the chagrin of Archer Daniels Midland) can be grown in places we don't currently need for food. Switchgrass is a weed (as is, you know, weed, which might also work), and it grows on terrain tht can be farmed, but not cost-effectively for human food. I've also always liked the idea of turning the toxic man-made lake known as the Salton Sea into an Algae farm. You can also grow kickass algae with crazy plexiglass pipes hooked up to the smokestack of coal-fired power-plants like the kids at MIT did.

The nobel winner says build something, and I agree. The time is ripe for big-time investment in carbon-neutral energy infrastructure (and carbon-capture, like I pointed out before). This shit is real. Let's power our fighter jets with algae. Srsly!