With gas prices approaching $4 a gallon and industries searching for new ways to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, biofuels – fuels such as ethanol derived from corn and other plant sources rather than petroleum – are becoming an increasingly attractive option to help mitigate the impacts of climat e change and reduce our oil imports.

The promise of powering our cars exclusively with green energy from plants prompted President Bush to ask Congress recently for $225 million for biofuels research – a 19 percent increase over this year's federal spending level. And it brought more than 300 scientists and business leaders from around the nation to a meeting here recently hosted by the University of California San Diego to discuss new ways of producing ethanol from plants and other promising avenues of biofuels research.

Everyone seems to be touting the benefits of biofuels these days: Midwestern farmers, environmentalists, state and federal legislators, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, business leaders, venture capitalists and university scientists. But can corn-based ethanol – the primary focus of current biofuels efforts – deliver what we need to accomplish? And are the promises of biofuels more hype than real? 

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