Using waste products to produce ethanol

Came across another great energy site, Green Car Congress. Found this great article explaining how and why you can produce ethanol from biomass waste. The city of Seattle (and SF for that matter) already offer a "yard waste" pick up service, which could provide the raw material for this process. It's sort of disheartening that all the technology for "Back to the Future" style energy (remember the biomass device on the DeLorean?) exists, right here, right now, and Americans are complaining about gas prices instead of mounting an all out assault, demanding non-fossil fuel energy now.