But here’s the thing. Right now, folks are using what they they have a lot of and what’s available in using corn and palm kernel oil. How likely is it that these plants turn out to be the optimal sources?

One way or the other, biofuels boil down to letting plants capture the sun’s energy, and then harvesting that energy to use as our fuel. Some plants are going to do this more efficiently than others, and then from there some of the processes we develop to harvest that energy are going to be more efficient than others. For things like powering cars, we do need energy-dense fuel. So if we use corn and palm kernel oil, the stuff we extract is more energy dense than if we use grass. So if we use grass, then we have to come up with more efficient concentration processes than what corn performs, or what palm tree performs.