Ethanol costs about $1.50 worth of gasoline to produce and transport a $1.00 worth of ethanol fuel. What's the point?
Windmills can only be run in moderate speed winds. They rust and have to be dismantled and replaced every so often. There is no battery big enough to store much of their energy. The distribution system from windmills to a point of use is cost prohibitive. They are eyesores, bird killers and there is no place to dispose of them when they get too old to operate. Not very sustainable.
Solar only works with taxpayer subsidies and credits. The cost to supply full power to a commercial building or residence can be so expensive that just using regular electricity and natural gas can power a house for 50 years before the cost of the solar is recovered. Who lives in a house for 50 years? And the systems have to be replaced and repaired over time, raising the initial costs significantly. Not very sustainable.
Fossil fuels are the most inexpensive and efficient fuels to run our economy. Don't try to fix what is not broke.
My panels on the roof cost 35 cents per watt capacity bulk on the pallets. The two 8000 watt inverters that back feed to the grid cost 50 cents per watt. My 15 kw system makes its full rated power 220 days per year in North Texas at full sun and still makes 2 to 3 kw under partly cloudy skys. The installers did the job in two days and the electricians took two more to grid tie two 200 amp panels. I leased my roof top real estate to the solar power company. They played for the panels and inverters I happened to see the invoices that’s why I know what they paid for the system. Install was general labor at $20 hr and electricians were $80 hr. In exchange I get all the kWh I can use at 3 cents per kwh and they sell anything that I don’t use to ERCOT at what ever peak rate they bid up too. My panels make 120 to 130 kWh per day in full sun and DFW gets 220 or more of those days per the nws climate center per year. My home never has used more than 50 kWh in a day I have twin system ground source heat pumps that are amazingly efficient keep my home at 68 all summer and 75 in the winter months. At a retail rate of 7 cents per kwh the pay back period would be 7.6 years if they sold all the power at 7 cents , peak rates for summer ERCOT bid can be $130 megawatt hr or 13 cents per kwh or more. Solar never curtails first by law so they always get the highest leaker rates from ERCOT the payback for a 15 kw system would be 5 years or less in sunny Texas. These Panels have a full 25 year Warranty and have survived 70mph winds and golf ball sized hail in fact the area of roof that were not covered in panels had to be replaced after the golf ball sized hail we got in April the panels saved the roof under them in this case. Not a single panel has failed in the two years they have been up even after hail of that size.