Soon to have an escape FFV in the family: my thoughts...feel free to discuss!
I feel ethanol, sadly, is viewed by people as something that needs to be cheaper than gasoline. While it does need to be somewhat economically reasonable, the benefits of ethanol are not to just go green/cheap. Ethanol, regardless of wether or not it costs more, provides, believe it or not, some form of protection and national security against the unstable world of the middle east and its oil. The world is getting turbulent, and do you really want the other countries to have the US by the balls over oil? Sure we could go to war for oil, (like we kinda sort of did), but you must ask yourself as an american: am I willing to kill young men and women, and have them maimed, and leave their families missing a member, JUST so that I can have my cheap gasoline? Answer yes, and well....good luck to you. But I think ethanol should be viewed as worth it, even if it costs more, just for the economic security. Additionally, we are humans, engineers.We can do almost anything we put our minds to. Im sure when the airplane came out, it was not seen as an efficient mode of transportation. Add some human ingenuity and look at that, we can send 350 people across the country doing 550 mph in 777 using only a tad bit more of fuel in the grand sceem of things as it would take a car.I plan on filling up with ethanol when I can, because although it may be inefficient now, if there is support for the development of technology, it will be made efficient. Changing fuel sources is hard work; it is not going to happen over night. But the benefits, I assure you, will be worth it. Think of all the money that would be saved future conflicts/current conflicts we werent addicted to oil. Thats a lot of rebates to be had for farmers producing ethanol....feel free to comment! discussion and compromise are key to the progress of civilization ;-)