Dave Carpenter, Associated Press via Yahoo!News
...Solutions for high gasoline prices might seem painfully far off to drivers as summer travel season begins, but experts say the skyrocketing costs of oil and gas have given new momentum to the push to develop alternative fuels and alternative energy sources.

The efforts are readily apparent in the nation's heartland, where a boom in ethanol is expanding and scientists at laboratories far and wide are working to turn agricultural waste or "biomass" such as switchgrass, wheat straw, cornstalks and miscanthus into a fuel called cellulosic ethanol that could be produced commercially to reduce U.S. dependence on oil.

In a separate burst of alternative energy developments unrelated to transportation fuels, wind farms are sprouting up across the country thanks to larger, more efficient turbines, and nascent coal-to-energy technology holds promise for pollution-free power plants in the future.

The driving force for most of the energy efforts, though, is oil. And researchers are thrilled about the impetus that soaring prices have given their work.

...Those now in labs trying to devise cheaper energy solutions applaud federal and state government support but emphasize that more will be needed if they are to succeed.

"A lot of people in government who ridiculed energy conservation and alternative energies ... are now investors," said Al-Hallaj. "The people who are funding these projects are the same ones who said, `Drill and spend and forget about it.'"

Rather than a single breakthrough, experts say it will likely take a combination of energy developments to help break free of oil's grip.

"There are a lot of people out there who think there's a silver bullet to answer the energy challenge facing this country — one technology that will answer everything," said Gerald Groenewold, director of the Energy and Environmental Research Center in Grand Forks, N.D. "Some people say wind's the answer to electricity generation, ethanol's the answer to vehicle generation. We think it will be a mix of a lot of things."
Full Article:

Quest for energy alternatives heats up

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