It’s true that opponents of biofuels - most often of late distilled from crops like corn and sugar cane - dismiss them as a blind alley, one that drives up food prices without saving the earth. But as Time asks, But what if biofuels could be made without food crops, using an inedible plant grown on less than optimum farmland?

That’s exactly the thinking behind the push to develop cellulosic ethanol from the waste plant switchgrass, which grows throughout the Midwestern prairies, with little input from farmers. Instead of fuel from food, switchgrass cellulosic ethanol promises fuel from virtually nothing — and a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) argues that it’s worth making the switch.

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