anyway, i dont believe ethanol is the correct fuel alternative. its easy binds to water and easily contaminates the water supplies. also, it requires much more ethanol to produce as much power as regular gasoline. it produces the same amount of carbon based gases as regular fuel and requires fossil fuel to make it. in addition, much of corn is for food ie sodas, baking goods, etc or for feed for cattle. there is a surplus of it, but thats thanks to genetics. Corn was getting ravaged by pests and such, but genetically modified corn, Bt-corn, was created and helped with the production. now imagine if ethanol was used for fuel like fossil fuel is. the demand will skyrocket and i dont think everyone would like the fact of eating bt-corn. i for one dont mind, but you get those mac people who do care.
Yes, if you follow agri. trends than you see that the demand between ethanol and growing nations (primarily the two fastest growing economies, with the largest amount of people in the world; India and China) has caused a rise in the price of grain. This fact has already been realized.
The trickier part that I was talking about with agri. is how the shift to increased demand for corn, in a corn based society (we use corn for virtually everything; corn starch, high fructose corn syrup as a cheap sweetener, etc., etc.), has effected the price of other grains. Wheat is hitting an all time high as is corn.
As you said, ethanol produces less energy than diesel. The exact figure is pretty daunting but I forget the number off of the top of my head. Further as you pointed out, it takes a lot of energy to produce ethanol. Running that farm manufacturing equipment requires mass amounts of energy from some source.
The kicker is that recent studies have shown that ethanol may be worse for the environment, due to the energy expended while producing ethanol but also because of the removal of crops removes a primary source of carbon removal from the air. They're clearing huge plots of land, cutting down the forestry and then periodically harvesting the grain which leaves less plant life to filter carbon out of the air.
I don't know why we don't use switch grass for ethanol like Brazil does, but that much of the topic I'm very vague on the information.
Hybrids are the answer for our fuel consumption in the present. In 2010 and 2011, GM and Toyota are supposed to debut full plug in hybrids that are supposed to be much more fuel efficient. Toyota was supposed to release their hybrid in the next year but when one of the laptop manufactures had a recall on their batteries (i think it was sony, hp, or dell) Toyota found out that their batteries were using the same technology and decided to do more extensive testing before letting them hit the market.
Short term hybrids are the only real feasible answer because we don't have the infrastructure in place for any other new technology to rapidly hit the market. Plus transportation is by far the number one consumer of energy in America. If we reduce the amount of energy required there then demand will fall, making prices settle and also the harmful effects on the environment will be greatly lessened.
Bush was foolish when he dedicated all that money to hydrogen as an alternative fuel source, simply because its not a sound short term play. We don't have the infrastructure in place and Toyota even has said its years off. Although, I heard just the other day BMW released some hydrogen cars to go along with the one or two hydrogen filling stations in Germany. I don't know how they'll run or if any other car manufacturers are ahead of where Toyota claimed to be in the last year.
Bush should have taken that money and reinstated the tax rebates for hybrid vehicles to try to entice greater demand by subsidizing the increased price of hybrids. His bad.
I think the real key is that no one really knows what is the next big alternative technology after hybrids.