As far as biofuels not being an energy-efficient means of delivering power for cars (less so than plain-old oil production), I was at a agricultural research conference 5 years ago where they were talking about this - it is not new news...

Something that not a lot of people are talking about is the cost of biofeuls. As someone who was involved in the agriculture industry for years, and who still has quite a few family members who are farmers, I watch the commodity markets. Grain prices have been shooting up for the last year or so, and will continue to do so, as we begin to approach a world-wide food shortage. The big grain companies have been trying to keep this quiet for years, in order to ensure that they could pay producers low prices. However, we're at the point now where the carryovers from year to year are so thin that they can't hide it anymore. Part of the rise in grain prices has been due to the need for more acres being dedicated to production for biofeuls, as the needs of production for food and fuel battle it out. Until biofuel production methods become more efficient (in terms of being able to use plant stalks for production, and not the grain), and oil becomes even more expensive due to dwindling reserves, it will be much more cost-effective to use oil, and to try to figure out how to use less of it - I myself recently went from a full-size SUV to a mid-size sedan, and have reduced my fuel use by over 50% (and my sedan's engine isn't even broken in yet - it's only got 1500 miles on it)...