[Old Student]

"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.

[norraad]

Think of it this way.

Say water is the blood of the planet and oil is like the lymph system.

In terms of scale that's about right.

The x{=has been}~spurts{drip under pressure} are very ignorant of the real nature of petroleum (from the Latin ~ rock oil).

Get it?

It's rock oil!

The Earth makes it in quantizer we'll never ever put a dent in, . . ever.

That's why all the estimates always have to be revised upward.

It's under pressure from deep down and is always looking for ways to come up.

If we didn't use some of it, it would be all over the place, like in Jed's swamp.