So the government wants you to believe that Ethanol is the new Gasoline. Well I don't think that's quite true because currently Ethanol comes at the expense of gasoline and I think we're getting RIPPED OFF. The text below is from BUSINESSWEEK.

Please let me know what your thoughts are.
Beyond high gas prices, why is everyone talking about ethanol?

It's becoming an increasingly important part of the fuel supply, and has the potential to become still more crucial. President George W. Bush and members of Congress have expressed support for ethanol use. And this spring, refiners in parts of Texas and the Northeast have been replacing a gasoline additive called MTBE (for methyl tertiary-butyl ether) with ethanol. MTBE, a chemical used to oxygenate fuel, can contaminate drinking water. And Ethanol which does not present the same danger, can serve the same purpose in fuel.

That's not all. The 2005 energy bill requires that the U.S. boost its ethanol production to 7.5 billion gallons by 2012, up from about 4 billion in 2005. This sounds like a whole lot of ethanol, but bear in mind, last year the U.S. slurped up almost 140 billion gallons of gas.

Are there any problems with ethanol?

Oh, yes. Ethanol can't travel in pipelines along with gasoline, because it picks up excess water and impurities. As a result, ethanol needs to be transported by trucks, trains, or barges, which is more expensive and complicated than sending it down a pipeline. As refiners switched to ethanol this spring, the change in transport needs has likely contributed to the rise in gas prices. Some experts argue that the U. S. doesn't have adequate infrastructure for wide ethanol use.

Also, ethanol contains less energy than gas. That means drivers have to make more frequent trips to the pump.

Doesn't producing ethanol on a large scale use a great deal of energy?
Yes. Some ethanol skeptics have even argued that the process involved in growing grain and then transforming it into ethanol requires more energy from fossil fuels than ethanol generates. In other words, they say the whole movement is a farce.

There's no absolute consensus in the scientific community, but that argument is losing strength. Michael Wang, a scientist at the Energy Dept.-funded Argonne National Laboratory for Transportation Research, says "The energy used for each unit of ethanol produced has been reduced by about half [since 1980]." Now, Wang says, the delivery of 1 million British thermal units (BTUs) of ethanol uses 0.74 million BTUs of fossil fuels. (That does not include the solar energy -- the sun shining -- used in growing corn.) By contrast, he finds that the delivery of 1 million BTUs of gasoline requires 1.23 million BTU of fossil fuels.

Producing ethanol could get more efficient soon as new technologies help farmers get more corn per acre of land and allow ethanol producers to get more of the fuel from the same amount of corn. The companies developing new corn technologies include chemical giant Dupont (DD) and Monsanto (MON), which sells genetically modified seeds as well as chemicals for protecting crops.

So where can I find ethanol?
There's a good chance you're using it already. It's mixed into gas in many regions of the country including the corn-belt Midwest, and states like California and New York which had already banned MTBE. The regions making the transition this spring are the Northeast and parts of Texas.

Cars in the U.S. can normally drive on E10, a mixture of 10% ethanol and 90% gasoline, that is sometimes called gasohol. It's how Americans usually take their ethanol. Relatively few cars available here are "flex-fuel," meaning that they can run on much higher concentrations of ethanol. The fuel E85, which is 85% ethanol, is sold at some gas stations concentrated in the Midwest.

Is ethanol cheaper than gas?
Surprise, surprise, it isn't. The move this spring by more regions to use ethanol means that demand has spiked, driving up prices. On Monday, the New York harbor price was around $3 per gallon compared with about $2.28 for gasoline (before being mixed with ethanol). In other words, for now ethanol is helping to increase prices at the pump, not to push them down.