See, if you just give the market time to work itself out, solutions will present themselves:

New ethanol source created. (http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/story?id=52287)

One thing you rarely find is the photon energy to fuel energy conversion efficiency of such proposals (especially from academia). When you do find those numbers, they are well below 1%. PV or solar thermal can give 15-40%.

great to see new research being done and new solutions being found! but i'd like to see some data about cost/effeciency/volume before i get too happy. ;)

As PDT and &Eye pointed out, this sounds great on the surface. Hopefully this can be done safely and economically in scale. I don't see an issue with low solar efficiencies (although 1% might be too low). It is the cost/KWh that has inhibited PV and solar thermal, not the efficiencies.

How does basic research at public universities equate to markets sourting themselves out in a timely manner?

Solutions ALWAYS present themselves eventually, but with little forethought the paths to the solutions are rarely ones that anyone would choose.