ORIGINAL: DSkippy
Hyrdogen on demand! :-)
OR
Sweet Sorghum produced ethanol! I can't remember what I was watching, I'm thinking Beyond Tomorrow, but they had SAAB testing cars and they indicated there was a lot more energy in a gallon of Alcohol than in a gallon of Gas. They said it still has to be 15% gas for lubricating purposes. They indicated in the 30's Model T's were running around on alcohol.
Top Fuel Dragsters use 10% alcohol (albeit Methanol) so there must be some energy in it.
My dad always said in the 80's during Gasahol, that the alcohol burned at higher temps and that was concern for valves burning?
Anyhoo, as oil approached $140 a barrel, I think OPEC will put cut much of its own business (or at least push enough people into making profit on fulfilling the energy need with alternatives for some change).
Someone will figure a way to produce this energy more efficiently. There'll always be a need for speed, it's just a matter of how to produce it!
Perhaps in Butanol, but not Ethanol. People get much worse fuel economy with E85 than they do with E10 or regular. I get about the same results with either E10 or gas. I wish biofuels were the answer, but unfortunately they are currently about as effective as using duct tape on the Titanic when it began to split into two. The issue is it takes a lot of energy to produce them in the first place. Beyond this, we need oil for tons of things besides just gas. Remember that the reason why gas was used in the first place in cars was because it was a waste product that they had no other practical purpose for. Biofuels sound good on paper, especially to farmers, but at this point they do not address the problem as a whole (and this is coming from someone who's family, friends, business clients, etc. are farmers and has no connection to oil companies). Gas is just experiencing an expensive trend due to lack of domestic production and speculation, give it time and the market will correct itself like it always does, just as long as the oinkers in Washington don't mess things up further.