Alcohol doesn't have the same energy gallon-for-gallon as diesel.
Diesel has 139000 BTU per gallon.
Ethanol has 76000 BTU per gallon.
At 1.8 gallons of ethanol per gallon of diesel, you're getting 136800 BTUs out for every 139000 BTUs you put in.
You LOSE 2200 BTUs.
Even if we're generous and say 2 gallons, we only gain 13000 BTUs.
...and that's just to get the ethanol to the storage tank at the ethanol plant! I sincerely doubt that figure includes trucking the finished product to fuel depots, and then on to gas stations.
...and that's using modern fuel-efficient equipment! An old 1066 can't possibly hold a candle to a new Magnum as far as acres covered per gallon of fuel.
If we just ate the corn and burned the energy wasted turning it into ethanol in our cars, we wouldn't even notice the difference in our dependency on foreign oil. Heck some of these oil nations are deserts and can't produce their own food. How about we sell them some of the corn we don't eat? Of course that won't work because our government, rightys and leftys alike, have allowed other countries to impose huge tariffs on our exports, while letting them send their stuff over here tax-free. Leftys because they're afraid of making someone mad. Rightys because they're making big money on the deal.
Corn ethanol is not economically feasible. You just can't get enough out to justify what you put in. Maybe if this biomass or switchgrass ethanol thing ever works out... They say you can get 3 to 5 times as much out as you put in.
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