To summarize my thoughts on the topic, no we cannot use food crops and arable land for energy production, no biomass is not sufficient, and a nexus of solutions

To summarize my thoughts on the topic, no we cannot use food crops and arable land for energy production, no biomass is not sufficient, and a nexus of solutions will be required. Managing and integrating those solutions is where the complexity comes into play. If you're deploying a nexus of solutions it doesn't matter as much if some of the technologies are immature, you can structure them to cover each other's deficiencies (similar to the computer security concept of defense in depth). I was mostly responding to the original poster's feeling of hopelessness and arguing that solutions are possible and are being developed.