Ethanol as biofuel - a viable alternative to traditional fuels ?

In recent times, we have witnessed a lot of talk about biofuels in general and ethanol in particular. Biofuels are being promoted as alternatives to traditional fuels primarily because they produce fewer poisonous and greenhouse gases that harm the environment and cause global climate change (global warming). Governments everywhere are subsidizing startups in biofuel industry and leading energy companies are also investing huge sums of money to develop biofuels.

Some recent studies have pointed out the ill-effects of using ethanol as a bio-fuel. I recently came across a very good article on Economist debating the use of ethanol as a biofuel. The entire article can be found here:

http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10766882

Another article from CNN talks, among other things, about how ethanol could add to the food woes of emerging countries. This article can be found here:

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/TECH/02/24/eco.biofuels/index.html

It will be interesting to see how the biofuel industry responds to these challenges. I will try to get some industry responses on this and post them here.