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"Of course ethanol is heavily subsidized by taxes and is in no way a good alterantive fuel."

Like gasoline IS a good fuel? NOT! The advantages of ethanol are that it is a renewable resource, and it is relatively easy to make, and that it is relatively safe and non-polluting. Disadvantages are that it is low in energy density, and expensive to make. It is quite versatile, chemically, however.

Gasoline is high in energy density, but relatively unsafe, not so good relative to pollution, and both dangerous and expensive to make. It was originally chosen, IIRC, because it was cheap, a waste byproduct of the production of kerosene for lamp oil. It's also a non-renewable resource.

(caveat: according to what I taught my geography students, renewable is based on human time scales; if we can get more of it in a human lifetime, it's renewable. If it takes more than a lifetime, like for instance oil, which supposedly takes millions of years to renew, it ain't. I've seen arguments that oil is also a renewable resource, but I'm not educationally equipped to evaluate them properly.)

Problem is that nothing is really a GOOD fuel. Some are less un-good than others, is all. Which is best depends on your circumstances.