http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4603272.stm

Hard to imagine the public not jumping all over a solution to high gas prices and in the face of peak oil. E85 sounds like a real winner of a solution (or a nice way to make the oil we have last longer). 85% bioethenal and 15% gasoline mixture that does as well on mileage, and the cars already exist to use the blend, which produces less greenhouse gases to boot. Hell, I'd drive one. Bioethenol costs about $2.34 a gallon according to the article and current exchange rates. Not a real cost savings at present, but a huge way to extend the lifestyle of car transport. Bring them on!

Hell, it also would make use of the extra wheat the government subsidizes every year!

The problem is that its not an efficient burn. In other words yes you can get it cheaper per gallon, but your miles per gallon will significantly drop with E85. It becomes a wash. They have it at gas stations in Wisconsin and people are not to thrilled with the results. Really worried about gas prices might want to consider a cheap late model disel (like a older VW) and purchase some Biodesel or set it up to burn used vegetable oil.

Aye, e85 was used to Colroado here for along time. Cars ran terrible on it and the overall effect it had in lessening greenhouse polutants was negligable. Colorado dropped it.

Not to jump in late...

My family farms, and I'd love for this to be a solution. But you spend more energy making ethanol products than you get back.

But you spend more energy making ethanol products than you get back.
Right now.

I don't know if this can be improved upon or by how much, given possible advances in technology. I'd hate to write off further research because the cost/benefit is currently untenable.

But you spend more energy making ethanol products than you get back.

This is essentially true of any fuel source. We get away with fossil fuels because the energy that went into making them was expended over millions of years, but we shouldn't count it against alternatives since it's going to have to be that way sooner or later. Ideally you'd want something like nuclear or tidal energy ultimately powering your portable combustion fuels, none of which will ever be as net efficient as pumping oil.

But you spend more energy making ethanol products than you get back

I've often wondered how that equation would change if the current business model for the production and distribution of vehicle fuels were changed.

Were ethanol were produced on smaller, local farms instead of the sprawling industrial farms using animal power (such as mules for tilling the fields) instead of gasoline or diesel and sold in the local market, it might shift the balance a little bit. Sun grows the plants that power the mule that does most of the work. Renewable and cheap. Granted, the human labor would be much greater, but you'd eliminate the current fossil fuel energy costs associated with planting/raising/harvesting the crops.

There is still the pesky problem of getting it to market, though.

1. You're suggesting going back to the agricultural practices of 1910?

2. I'm lazy and won't look it up right now, but I believe many of hte studies count energy used only AFTER the stuff leaves the farm. After all, if you're raising it for biofuel, you're not gonna bother using time/fuel/etc. to lay down weed control, till it occasionally, etc.

1. You're suggesting going back to the agricultural practices of 1910?

No, I'm wondering if it would change the equation in to balance in favor of producing bio-fuels in that manner. Idle speculation. Call it the stuff you think about in the last 10 minutes before you go to sleep at night.

I don't *really* think that those methods could be done on a large enough scale to meet the needs of a country like the U.S. (not to mention the food consumption of the extra people raising the crops in the first place might tip the balance back the other way due to the intense nature of the labor). However, there might be some (very temporary) applications in developing nations.

You couldn't do it. Seriously. You need mass amounts of the "bio" part and you simply couldn't harvest enough of it using early 1900s farming methods.