An encouraging article was printed in the Washington Post yesterday about the potential use of a native American grass, switchgrass, as a biofuel. This perennial, native to the American prairie, produces a huge amount of biomass whose sugars could possibly be distilled into ethanol for fuel. The distillation process needs to be developed further and there is still some question about whether we could produce more units of energy than the units of energy needed to be invested in the process. But the idea of growing a plant for fuel that isn't also a foodstuff (corn, for example) is highly appealing. This photo is borrowed from the website of the Archive of Central Texas Plants with my apologies.
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