Yes I believe hemp, like other weedy species (Paulownia trees, bamboo), produces more biomass per acre per season for the same water/soil inputs than slower-growing fibre or oil crops. Hemp is a pretty nifty plant actually (practically a Wompom if you know your Flanders and Swann), and imho the whole US anti-marijuana hysteria has set back the US sustainable materials sector by decades. I have often thought that Hawai'i's ruined sugar farming sector could easily be converted to hemp production; but the local covert marijuana farmers hate the idea, as the low-quality hemp pollen would contaminate their expensive high-quality recreational crop.
I'll see if I can run some numbers on hemp. Makes nice rope, and wonderful fabric too. A hemp/silk blend is tough as nails and washes to a very pleasant texture.
Obviously I don't share asdf's enthusiasm for further expensive, corporate/industrial technofixes :-) So far I know of no GMO crop trial which has actually produced improved yields per acre, only increased revenues for the patent-holding corporation (and for legions of trained attack-lawyers used to harass farmers like P Schmeiser). I know of no GMO crop trial which has actually shown real promise of addressing nutritional deficits (the Golden Rice scam was just that: a well-spun PR scam). But we can tackle the GMO issues in another diary. At least we can agree on the windmills :-) and I'd like to see some tidal generation projects too.
But as asdf says in a comment w/which I could not more heartily agree, it makes little sense to burn our food so we can drive our cars. At the heart of the problem is DEMAND REDUCTION. There are only two ways to achieve this. One is by voluntary or regulated reduction of consumption; the other is by forcible extermination of large numbers of people to allow the remaining elite to go on hogging what remains. Historically, collapsing cultures have consistently chosen Option B (which is why they collapse, so I guess that was tautological, sorry). Tikopia is one instance of a culture choosing Option A... there may be other instances.
BTW if anyone is interested in a radical critique of Jared Diamond's "Collapse" book I have found one, worth a read I thought. Certainly reinforces some of my own misgivings about bits of his text, though I still think the book as a whole is a good read and quite an achievement. Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 At same site, an interesting account of Soviet environmentalism and its destruction by Stalinism...
And J, sorry to be terrifying, but I have that same "stuck in a fast American gas-hog-mobile with a drunken teenage boy driver and already into the spinout" feeling. I wake up scared, and if you ask me, more people should. We're looking straight at the oncoming brick wall and trying to pretend it ain't there. Scares the bejeezus out of me: the level of denial and blind faith in the "They" who are going to come up with some miracle technology to make it all just peachy again, in our "advanced" cultures, is astounding. Truly we have elevated "Science" to some kind of religious icon, a golden calf or an airplane made of bamboo; people now think of it as an institution into one side of which you pour credulous faith, and out of the other side comes infinite abundance and entertainment. Ironic.
To tell the truth sometimes I think this whole GWOT scam and its use by the ruling classes to enact more and more repressive laws, the discarding of posse comitatus in the US etc, tightening of borders, ID cards, surveillance, RFID tagging, all this 1984esque stuff... is planned and thoughtful preparation by our elite masters, against the day when various shortages (food, water, oil) start to be felt and the population "needs to be controlled". It's just a bad feeling I have sometimes. But hey, in a pinch that tinfoil hat can be reworked into a primitive solar oven... The difference between theory and practise in practise ...
