There was just one major story yesterday in the alternative energy stock world - Biofuels Corporation announcing that the year's results were going to be worse than the market expected and that they would need up to £25 million in investment to keep going.

Biofuels Corp has been in and out of trouble for some time - as I blogged about here back in 2005. Volatility appears to be a hallmark of this stock - right now (11.20 am London time) it is up 18%, having almost halved in value yesterday.

You'd be forgiven for thinking that biofuels were a straightforward good bet with governments around the world pledging to increase their mandated share of transport fuel in the years to come. And yet, the unforseen consequence of this action was to unleash higher raw material costs in the scramble for the limited supply of feedstock crops - this has clearly hurt Biofuels Corp. Something similar happened with solar power and silicon prices. And with windpower, that industry has run up against a world shortage of steel.

My prejudice is that alternative energy vehicles that run on hybrid electric technology have much more potential than biofuels. Although, we may see a new run-up in the price of lithium (for the batteries) to meet demand.