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E-85 is a real bargain now

Not if one considers the inherent inefficiencies of ethanol. Unsubsidized ethanol only becomes attractive (today) when gasoline costs, net of taxes, exceed $5.00 per gallon. The big drawbacks for ethanol are distribution and lack of refining (fermenting) capacity. If we could get a judge Green to force the oil and refining companies to give away their facilities at cost, we might be on to something. I do not see that happening in the short term.

The more I look into Ethanol fuel, the more I begin to like it. I don't buy the subsidy argument frankly; we're already subsidizing farmers not to grow things. How about terminating fallow field subsidy and allow farmers to grow whatever they want, for the sole purpose of making ethanol, operations for which are to be sustained entirely by ethanol. I'd be amenable for tax credits for equipment. The bottom line: revenue - expenses = profit. Breakeven point analysis can ascertain price per gallon for ethanol to be viable.

The Wiki has a pretty good essay on E85 and talks a bit about its inefficiencies. Ethanol is not a newfangled fuel. Henry Ford's vehicles were essentially flex-fuel vehicles back in the '20's. I have a hard time believing that with our present 21st century technology we can't make ethanol a viable fuel. For a decent technical essay into details betwixt gasoline, methanol and ethanol as fuels read this essay on biofuels.

Frankly, the arguments against ethanol fuel are beginning to disgust me. The subsidy one being the one that rankles me the most. Aside from paying farmers not to grow, we're essentially subsidizing the very foreign governements that are hostile to us by providing the very revenue to allows the regimes running them to be in existance. Whether we buy oil from Iran, or whether we buy oil from Venezuela is a moot point: the U.S. is the largest buyer in the oil market. Supposing we pulled half of our requirements out of the markets. How much does a nuclear program cost? What would happen to the price of oil if the U.S. pulled half of its orders for oil in? What would happen to the balance of accounts in such a scenario?

Oh, but you wag your finger, if we did that, oil prices would plummet and bio-fuel would become non-viable. Hardly. That is, not if there was a 100% import tariff imposed on all crude oil imported explicitely for the purpose of refining into gasoline (or already refined foreign gasoline). We could ship those tariff's (on a sliding scale) right to the farmers, such that the net price to the consumer would be equivalent to what the rest of the world would pay for pure gasoline.