Ethanol is a croc, a band aid solution that assists with keeping consumers at the pump and driving a once marginal industry back into the black.

alternative sources such as water powered engines will be a solution when they can work out how to make sure we must only use their water.

There is no gloom and doom here, we are on the verge of an energy shift like no other, but not until people stop driving cars and profits start to decline will there be the need for alternates to hit the market, there needs to be an opportunity for growth and re establishing marketshare.

In the mean time, lets ditch these silly alternative options as they are pathetic attempts to solve the problem, that actually take more science to produce than things such as water powered engines.

Realist

We need to look at ALL alternatives while shifting from nonrenewables across to sustainable fuels.

Until then, it is reasonable to consider the addition of ethanol (to petro) while we make the transition.

Therefore, to dismiss something as "a crock" is not helpful, as yet hydro-cars are not economically viable. Until we have such technology up and running we need to do everything we can to preserve remaining fossil fuels.

The author needs to learn his subject before writing such useless junk. We already have a viable biodiesel industry, requiring no scientific or huge set up costs. You don't need to use large tracts of land, or denude forests, our native plants and weeds like wild radish produce twice as much oil as commercial food products. It's about control and economic power, nothing else. Another ploy to make out they're looking at alternatives, but doing nothing.

Engines running on water's the way to go, I saw one back in 1976 in Eden NSW. In 1966 I had a ride in the Pritchard steam car in Melbourne which got hundreds of kilometres on 1 lt of kerosene, was silent, fast, had no gears and took less than 1 minute to warm up. Pritchards invention was bought out by the ford motor company and disappeared. The bloke who had his engine running on water straight from the tank, showed his engine to prospective developers and the local federal liberal member. He was found dead 3 weeks later, from supposed natural causes at 28, yet the autopsy was never released, his engine and drawings vanished, whilst the family were at the funeral.

You'll find this is the case with any invention taking control away from automotive and oil cartels, ike the vaporising carburettor, giving more than 100 per lt petrol, Webber took that over and it disappeared. The average cars today are less efficient that 50 years ago, yet lighter and more technologically advanced. How come.

Nothing will change, you either get of your butts and get into biofuels, or go down with the economic ship as its oil fuelled bloatedness sinks under the greed of its controllers. Butanol is much better for petrol replacement and produces a few by products including ethanol.

Biofuels offer many benefits without the pollution, land degradation and are economically sound. Nothing will be done, oil cartels control governments with their huge donations and offers of cushy jobs after retirement. So the people have no chance of getting a better form of energy

The Great Barrier Marine Park Authority might get steamed up over the touted increase in cane farms in its vicinity.
And the suggestion of successful, continuing, production of cane from degraded land, sans fertiliser, deserves itself being fertilised with a heap of skepticism.

The ethanol 'miracle' in Brazil needs to be seen in perspective. Not only do they use sugar cane rather than grain but they have more hectares of good land per person, much of it ex-rainforest. They also have relatively fewer cars which tend to be compacts and they also have good domestic oil production. I doubt whether Australia could replace more than 20% of its current petro fuel use in the form of the favoured two biofuels biodiesel and starch ethanol.

The big unknowns are cellulosic ethanol, butanol, compressed biomethane and Fischer-Tropsch derived biofuels. These could easily overtake the current two biofuels but it could take 10-20 years. An interesting exercise would be to video the traffic on your street then compare the same scene in say 2015. Things are going to be tough for a while yet.

Author comment:

It would be nice to get some serious response, along the lines of the posting by Scout.

Realist simply asserts that ethanol is a 'croc' without any justification or reference to a vast literature. While we wait for 'water powered engines' it might be helpful to know just what is to be used to get the world off fossil fuels. And what exactly is the 'once marginal industry' referred to?

The Alchemist continues his/her line of personal abuse as a substitute for argument. This post seems to endorse biodiesel, which I was at pains to endorse myself. As for continued control by the automotive and oil cartels, I thought that one of the most attractive features of biofuels was that they provide an opportunity for new players -- such as farmers' coops -- to enter the fuel game.

Colinsett refers to the Great Barrier Marine Park, which is now being used to ward off any proposed shift in land use in Queensland -- including one such as sugarcane for ethanol where the fertilisers would be recycled from the waste produced by the ethanol distillation -- a self-enclosed process.

Taswegian seems to agree that biofuels have a significant future. Ethanol from sugarcane is obviously only the beginning -- but the post-fossil fuel future has to start somewhere.