Biofuels can boost incomes and yields for farmers, revitalizing impoverished rural areas when they are introduced in countries with secure land ownership, the International Institute for Environment and Development said.

By raising the price of crops such as corn and palm oil, biofuels can reduce poverty in countries with a high dependency on agriculture, the London-based researcher said in a report with the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization.

“Despite the highly polarized debate, biofuels are not all good or bad,” lead author Lorenzo Cotula of the IIED wrote in the report. “Biofuels can either help or harm the world’s poor depending on the choice of crop and cropping system, the business model, and the local context and policies.”

“Ethanol stocks were moving higher for a while,” says Charles Delvalle in Investor’s Daily Edge, “but have gone down since the middle of last year (maybe investors are catching on to how ‘not green’ ethanol really is). Geothermal producers are shooting higher. And those who sell wind turbines are making great money on increasing orders.

“By 2030, Morgan Stanley expects green sales across the globe to total over $1 trillion (that’s bigger than the Gross Domestic Product of 169 of the 181 member countries of the International Monetary Fund!). Most people I speak to see green technology as the wave of the future. It’ll only be a matter of time until they think that investing in green companies is a no-brainer.

“In the end, this whole green movement we see today could very well be the start of yet another massive bubble. And considering the riches that were made during the two previous bubbles, catching the green investment mania early on would be a great way to make a lot of coin in the next few years.”

Chris Mayer in The Daily Reckoning reckons it’s time to consider investing in an essential biofuel ingredient: sulfuric acid.

“The biofuel boom has kicked off a big increase in the demand for sulfuric acid. In fact, some 60% of the sulfuric acid ends up in agriculture. The surge in ethanol production is a double whammy on sulfuric acid. First, all that corn needs fertilizers. And second, the ethanol facilities themselves also use sulfuric acid in their own processing. A typical ethanol facility requires 2,000-4,000 tons of sulfuric acid per year.”

According to the London Times, the price of sulfur has risen from $50 to $500 a ton in under a year.

Food shortages and higher grain prices are boosting demand for fertilisers, and in only a year the price of sulphur has risen more than tenfold from $50 a tonne to $500 a tonne, according to ICIS, the chemicals-pricing service. The extraordinary surge in the price of sulphur is expected to generate windfall profits for some oil companies, notably Royal Dutch Shell and Chevron, as well as Gulf oil producers, such as Saudi Aramco and Adnoc, the Abu Dhabi national oil company.

There are a number of sulfuric acid stock market plays. This from Chris Mayer in The Daily Reckoning:

Most are big chemical companies that you wouldn’t buy if you only wanted exposure to sulfuric acid. Owning them is like buying Home Depot because you think it sells a great lawn mower. The only “pure play” on the idea I could find is a little company called Chemtrade Logistics in Canada, one of the world’s largest suppliers of sulfuric acid. It trades in Toronto under the ticker symbol CHE. You can find a quote on Yahoo using CHE-UN.TO.

It’s a Canadian income trust and pays a monthly distribution of about 10 cents. Based on a price of $11.44, that’s a yield of 10.5 percent. The company appears to be in good financial condition and throws off a lot of cash flow, much of which investors pocket in the distribution.

It’s not a sexy business, but it looks like an interesting play on what seems at least a temporary scarcity of a key chemical. Chemtrade is not a one-trick pony. It also produces liquid sulfur dioxide and sodium hydrosulfite. The company also sells into a wide range of end markets, so you’re not tied to the fortunes of any single sector. The company has an excellent presentation of its business, complete with slides, on its Web site.

Since I have not completed my research on either Chemtrade or on the overall sulfuric acid industry, I did not recommend Chemtrade to the subscribers of my investment service, Mayer’s Special Situations. But since this sector is red-hot at the moment and appealing on many levels, I decided to share the insights I’ve gleaned so far. I plan to do more research on the idea and keep an eye on it.

I would advise all investors to do the same. The skyrocketing price of sulfuric acid shows how interrelated the world’s commodity markets and economies have become. And these interrelationships can produce investment opportunities at light-speed. Agriculture, energy, metals…they’re all part of one big story – one big rapidly evolving story.