To the contrary, these "boutique" ideas will never amount to a hill of beans in terms of energy contribution to the global economy. Furthermore, as the article points out, diverting crops to fuel will shut off a higher-value use, namely feeding the world's growing population.
We definitely need the gonads to drill more holes in the earth to recover natural resources like oil, tar sands, coal and uranium.
I think in the long run, they make a difference. But they are in such a state of infancy, it may not be in our lifetimes.
Corn and Soybean production does not feed the world growing population. They feed livestock which is then killed for meat. As others has pointed out, the leftovers from ethanol production can be used to feed that livestock. In other words no one is going to starve.