The Ethanol burns cleaner. QUOTE]
That is true.
With the right mixture, you can get more power and zero emissions,
That is absolutely not true. It takes a lot more than a mixture adjustment to get more power out of a gasoline engine running on ethanol just to get the same power. New pistons are a good start. Oversize injectors and larger diameter fuel lines with high volume pumps and filters are often required. Due to ethanol's affinity for water, best to run an expensive water separator, too. Alcohol burns cleaner than gasoline, but is far from zero emissions. Now the timing curve needs to be advanced to suit alcohol. Once you've gone through all this trouble you'll have exactly the same amount of power as you did when you started and only go a little over half as far on a tank of fuel as you did with gasoline.
I heard that it takes nearly 2x the alcohol to produce the same result that gasonline produces.
Actually, ethanol provides about 5/8 the energy of gasoline, and the ratio varies depending on the grade and specific formulation of gasoline and the purity of the alcohol.
What most people don't realize is that an engine tuned to burn pump gasoline efficiently will be very inefficient burning ethanol. In fact, the ethanol usually won't burn until well past top dead center on the power stroke when the mechanical advantage of the levers involved are at poor ratios for converting heat energy to kinetic energy. So, modify the engine to run 100% ethanol, and still burn almost double the gallons of fuel to achieve a comparable work to gasoline. Forget about running pump gas in an alcohol-tuned engine--you'll knock holes in the pistons within 60 seconds after the engine reaches operating temperature.
My favorite argument is that putting ethanol in our gas makes it cheaper
Yeah, right.
I helped make the ethanol to run my grandfather's tractor when I was 6 years old. That was my first experience with alternative energy. Since then I've run internal combustion engines on methane from chicken poop, ethanol, methanol, corn oil, hydrogen, compressed natural gas, nitromethane, peanut oil, and gasoline. I won several science fairs with working models of internal and external combustion engines (steam, pulse jet, and gas turbine) operated on alternative fuels. I built an electric cart to fetch the mail, batteries charged by a hydroelectric plant of my own design and construction. I built a solar house that had to be vented in the winter and heated in the summer. Believe, none of these alternative energy sources are new. It doesn't take much study and experience to successfully put any of these energy sources to real work. The powers that be know exactly what they are doing with the energy sources currently available, and their goals are not the highest good for all concerned.