[Willie Green]

Most ethanol is made by cooking corn with natural gas. Nat. gas is a high rank fuel and could be used as a motor fuel.

Not to mention petroleum-based fertilizers and pesticides.

Not a very energy-efficient conversion process.

Besides, I can think of a better use for corn liquor than burning in an engine.

[alloysteel]

My preference, if we were starting with a clean slate today for a power plant with wide applications, would be for an external combustion engine. That is one where heat applied to an energy-carrying medium is used to drive a rotary output unit, providing useful energy for various applications. A steam engine, either as a reciprocating piston, or a steam turbine. A clean combustion flame, used to heat water to generate steam, which provides useful energy, then condensed and recycled, while the exhaust is vented off into the atmosphere, having created no oxides of nitrogen, or carbon monoxide, or particulate soot. Fuel could be natural gas, propane, or even butane. No fancy juggling of formulations to get a somewhat cleaner burn, as in internal combustion engines. Therefore, no need for ethanol or other attempts to add oxygenates to the fuel.