Making Prairie Grass into an Energy Source?

Are we closer to telling Middle East terrorists and Hugo Chavez to take their $100 a barrel oil products and shove them up where the proverbial sun does not shine? The world along with this country have been looking for cleaner alternatives than terrorist supporting oil products for some time now. Ethanol has been a name that continues to get tossed around as the answer. But one of the drawbacks that continues to haunt it is the cost towards actually turning corn and similar products into a viable fuel source. According to an article by David Biello published in Scientific American, tests on switchgrass have shown that the prairie grass can produce 540 times the amount of energy needed to produce it which is 25% more energy than produced by corn and similar products. It is a replenishable energy source, it grows perennial and in marginal soil. It is still in the early stages but could this be what we need to become energy independent and boost our economy at the same time? It could lessen the national debt by reducing the need for importing oil, keep large amounts of money out of the pockets of people who hate this country while also creating a product that could be exploited for profit. Sadly we could be a lot further along on this product than we already are. But thirty years of bipartisan Democrat and Republican bickering, foot shuffling and inefficient legislation direction have kept us tied to sending our money to terrorist countries for oil while also putting our very safety at risk from the same people that were benefiting from our business. It is time for our government to get out of granny gear and really solve this problem instead of playing their do-nothing legislating games. Perhaps this is the answer we need.