this reminds me of ethanol from corn.

Sure, it’s not from crude oil. But you’re still using all that land for crops, and still burning CO2 into the atmosphere. The suggested mass balance is that there’s a “carbon cycle” where crops sequester the CO2, then we burn it, and then it goes back to crops. Again, sure, but that doesn’t take into account all the energy needed to manage the farmland and process the corn to make ethanol.

My personal take is that, yes, it’s still better than releasing million-year-old crude oil carbon, but it’s not some permanent solution.