A new study suggests that burning corn (or other biomass) to generate electricity to power a car makes more environmental sense than turning the corn into ethanol. Another ding for the ethanol industry (which is fine), but then we still face the electric-car conundrum.
Also from the article:
All use of biomass — whether for ethanol or electricity — runs the risk of displacing food crops, however, as well as the need for large amounts of water. “Both pathways could be totally disastrous if these types of impacts can’t be avoided,” Campbell admits. “This is going to be a constrained area of land and amount of biomass, so how much transportation and greenhouse gas offsets can we milk out of this constrained land? It looks like the electricity pathway might get us more bang for the buck.”
So, as long as we can invent crops that don’t need water and people who don’t need to eat, we’ve got a winning solution.