Speaking as a layman but an interested one: 1) the progress really has seemed underwhelming [0], to the point that some minor uncertainties still seem to linge

Speaking as a layman but an interested one: 1) the progress really has seemed underwhelming [0], to the point that some minor uncertainties still seem to linger about the specific mechanisms of infection. I’ve heard more about greening than canker. As far as I’ve heard there is no “curing” these, just preventing the trees from getting sick, and in the case of canker, burning an huge radius around infected groves to keep it from spreading further. Gold-standard prevention measures involve things like covering the young trees with plastic bags to try and keep the bugs off [1]. Miracle of modern medicine this is not. As to 2), pretty sure that’s the kind of thing that lends itself to concrete calculation. Turning corn into ethanol, which Americans do on a massive scale, had a reputation of being super energy-intensive (as well as an ethically dubious use of arable land), although more recent official studies seem to estimate that corn ethanol produced with modern techniques results in 34% more energy than is input to make it [2]. The “squeeze the Pongamia beans and take the oil” method seems considerably less energy-intensive than “ferment the corn and distill it,” and the crop seems to have form: thriving in poor conditions with minimal inputs, easy to mechanically harvest, and a traditional role as a fuel oil source in its home countries. No idea how it performs compared to the alternatives though. [0] https://www.wlrn.org/environment/2023-05-08/the-20-year-fight-against-citrus-greening-in-florida-has-farmers-and-researchers-exhausted https://www.wlrn.org/environment/2023-05-08/the-20-year-figh... [1] https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/topics/citrus_greening https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/topics/citrus_greening [2] https://www1.eere.energy.gov/bioenergy/pdfs/energy_balance_of_corn_ethanol.pdf https://www1.eere.energy.gov/bioenergy/pdfs/energy_balance_o...