Something is rustling in the long grasses of Europe. It is called miscanthus, a variety of elephant grass which is being tested as a possible 'green' way of producing energy. One of its features is that it achieves high yields on little fertilizer. BBC science reporter Jonathan Amos reports from the Dublin conference at which it was announced.

Burning biomass is broadly neutral in terms of its emissions of carbon dioxide, the major gas thought responsible for warming the planet. "As the plant grows it is drawing carbon dioxide out of the air," explained Professor Steve Long, from the University of Illinois. "When you burn it, you put that carbon dioxide back, so the net effect on atmospheric CO2 is zero.

The plant itself, at 4m (about 13 ft) high is being tested in varieties yielding 60 tonnes of dry material per hectare, five times today's typical yield. Prof Mike Jones told the British Association's Festival of Science that, grown on 10 percent of Europe’s useful land, it could generate 9 percent of Europe’s electricity.

These are big numbers. They may be above the best which can be realistically expected from wind farms at current progress, and provide yet another example of the ingenuity which is going into developing new energy sources. Currently high oil prices will provide a real boost to this type of research, encouraging us to find alternatives far more readily than any inter-governmental diktats or NGO exhortations.

True, it doesn't make us live more simply: if it works it simply gives us a renewable source of electricity. Europe at present grows many crops which are environmental unfriendly and unpleasant because of the fertilizers and pesticides they need. CAP subsidies and tariffs mean that this activity denies poorer countries the ability to gain wealth by selling us their crops. So roll on miscanthus. It even looks quite pretty, too.