That is where switchgrass comes in. Although its energy efficiency is uncertain, since it falls into the emerging category of cellulosic ethanol, it definitely outstrips that of corn, and has a number of other advantages.
As a native grass, it requires little fertilizer and is resistant to many pests and plant diseases, according to Bransby.
In addition, switchgrass is great at capturing carbon dioxide and trapping it underground with its 3m deep roots, thus acting against the gas which is produced by burning fossil fuels and which many scientists say is the main reason for global warming.
Bransby hopes that switchgrass ethanol will be commercially available by 2012, as Bush proposed in his speech. There is more than "just interest" in the topic, "there is activity", the academic adds.
He even sees soaring oil prices as a silver lining to the cloud, "because it forces us to do what we should have been doing 20 to 30 years ago."
In fact, escalating prices have created a sort of demilitarized zone for cooperation along the entire political spectrum.
Conservatives are finally interested in alternative fuels to reduce US reliance on foreign oil, while environmentalists like the clean-burning qualities.
In Washington, lawmakers are beginning to take the subject seriously -- although the US federal government is way behind countries like Thailand and the Philippines, where national governments are mandating increased biofuel use, or Brazil, which requires 25 percent of its gasoline to contain ethanol.
Some individual US states, however, now demand some biofuel content.
Democratic Senator Kent Conrad, who has introduced legislation calling for a US$40 billion investment over five years into alternative fuels and technology, has renewed the cry for enforced improvements in the fuel efficiency of vehicles as well as cleaner coal plants.
He is particularly enamored of the switchgrass idea.
"Wouldn't it be great if the president, instead of looking to the Middle East, could turn to the Midwest, because we could help grow our way out of this crisis?" Conrad said.
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