At least as well, and it's established technology.
I'm not selling either of those things short.
Just don't get all freaky on me by trying to tell me what a wonderful fuel Methanol is for daily use (probably been involved in burning more of that over the years than everyone else on FR put together), or how energy efficient Ethanol is to produce, especially from corn.
Make your ethanol correctly, and drink it so you can burn it in your liver and brain.
Don't worry, bro'! I hear it costs 1.29 barrels of oil per barrel of ethanol produced, and there's less energy per unit volume to boot. Not to mention the fact that ethanol/gas turns to goo in cans and small engines over time.
And, an organic carbohydrate economy slowly strip mines the soil, IMHO.
Coal is another story. I think that it could be the mainstay of non-nuclear electricity generation in fairly short order. We can afford the stack strubbers. In other places, like transportation, we need portable energy because we have a liquid fuel distribution system in place. So, for coal conversion versus tar sands as a petroleum source, I'm open minded and wondering how efficient the conversion was for the Germans, because I don't know..