First the study that shows that it takes 5 quarts to produce one gallon
of ethonal is flawed.  The study takes all kind of things into
consideration, like the amount of energy it takes to smelt the iron to
produce a tractor.  Second of all burning ethonal in cars is a joke, it
wastes the potential energy in the corn.  Third hydrogen is the way to
go, hydrogen produced from ethanol.  At the University of Minnesota
they have been able to make a converter that converts 130% of the
energy in ethanol into hydrogen, to get the 130% it also extracts
hydrogen from the water found in the corn.

Nick
"The stone age didn't end because they ran out of stones."

If we are going to reduce our energy dependence we need to focus first
on diesel engines. They already are 30% -50% more fuel efficient per
work produced, which better than what Hybrids get in real life driving.
Diesel combustion is much more controllable so more complete combustion
means more power and companies like Cummins Diesel have shown that it
is possible to make diesels very clean without add on components. Just
adding a percentage of alternative bio-diesel even cleans the
combustion further. The real plus is that today's diesels create lots
of low end torque and require less RPM's which means less friction and
better efficiency. Also with 6 speed automatic transmissions the
acceleration is great since it allows the use of torque more
effectively. We can thank General Motors for the demise of our rail
system; they realized they could make a lot more money selling tens of
thousands of trucks vs. a few hundred locomotives. Plus we have a
subsidized highway system but the railroads had to build their own at
their expense, plus maintain them. Had we subsidized track building,
trains would be much more efficient at delivering goods. Plus modern
steam turbine technology would make trains capable of running on
anything that could be burnt. This is what happens when the government
gets involved in anything. Government=less efficiency. Gasoline won out
in the early days because its overall efficiency was better than all
other technologies. In that era the government was more hands off. Each
different technology was equally being developed. Hybrids are the
biggest government scam ever they cost the overall economy and
environment more than their savings. Plus we are adding to the problem
of creating more hazardous heavy metal batteries that must be dealt
with when they are no good. Studebaker had the idea in 1939, to build a
car to do its job, as efficiently as possible you must design it from
the ground up and not share its parts with larger vehicles. This
platform sharing that all companies are doing is costing us a fortune
since it makes all cars heavier which is a big waste in fuel. And
really doesn't save the company any real money. I also hope that
everyone realizes that for us to grow enough fuel we will have to make
everyone that's not a farmer sell their house in the suburbs and move
into high-rise apartments so we can convert all those subdivisions into
corn/bean fields again!!!