Of COURSE it's not. It's a fuel. It's a means of storing energy in a form that's convenient to handle and easy to use in engines built with current technology.
Solar, wind, hydro, and nuke are all energy sources. Ethanol, on the other hand, is a fuel, a stepping stone in the pathway between an energy source and cars. It doesn't matter if it's inefficient...it's in a form a car can use. Efficiency will improve as production comes online.
"But," you say, "If it costs more energy in fossil fuel than you can get out of ethanol, why not just use the fossil fuel and be that much ahead?" The answer is that we won't always be supporting the ethanol (or for that matter methanol) process with fossil fuels.
If this is to ever work, we must start somewhere. The first diesel engine was built before there was such a thing as diesel fuel. The short-term impracticality of the device was more than offset by long-term utility.
Correct. Try burning coal in your car.
What?!? An engine was built before there was any fuel to run or test it? Care to support that claim?
Interesting take on it. Why not hydrogen as the transfer medium and 200 new nucs as the power source then - that makes a lot more sense to me. I believe they're coming out with a hydrogen powered car that stores compressed H2 at 10,000 psi. Dunno how you refill the tank though.