RE: Curating the Internet: Science and technology digest for February 3, 2020
You are indeed correct regarding the use of biomass power and crops. It isn't a good idea. My take on that notion is that IF a region has just one person starving, then they should focus on feeding their people.
Using crops is a bad prospect as the almighty currencies will have a say in how the crops get disseminated. People in ivory tours can't, or won't, see the problems at ground-level.
Biomass is a robust technology when applied correctly. If possible, I prefer testing the technology at smaller scales before building commercially. It helps to solve lots of problems and would save in the long run. Nothing says failure like a vast fortune spent creating something that fails when you try to start it up.
I am also a fan of waste recycling and biomass power generation. If we can recycle waste in space, then we can certainly make an aggressive goal to put our wastes to good use.