If moving from gasoline to ethanol ultimately reduces pollution, it's going to be faster to achieve. We don't have to swap out everything at the consumer level, especially since many cars can run on E85 already.
Continuing to push electric cars is great, but it'll take a lot longer and require a high infrastructure investment to make it truly practical.
As I've stated elsewhere, the main problem is the supply constraint, and it's always a trade-off with food production. It means E85 is still expensive, and hasn't shown promise to scale to become cheaper. And the only way it can scale is to use more land, which must come from somewhere. Even if you don't care for the loss of biodiversity, the destruction of carbon sinks may nullify the purported carbon reduction of switching fuels.
Hybrid vehicles with regenerative braking don't require infrastructure changes and reduce carbon output, all while the consumer spends less on fuel.
I'm a huge fan of forests, wetlands, bushlands, heathlands, prairies, and other wild landscapes. If land use in agriculture dropped, my preference would be to see that land go back to the trees, wild-flowers, and the many creatures that live with them.
We've not forgotten that the impetus for this thread is a 600-hp engine designed for the next Koenigsegg supercar, right?
The Nissan Leaf and Tesla Model 3 are here today and are already practical cars, and are down-right affordable compared to a Koenigsegg. If you take purchase price out of the equation, the other Tesla cars are also practical in terms of range and electricity costs.
I hope those buying a new ICE car in 2020 who could afford otherwise have taken a credible look at buying an electric car instead.
There are serious challenges to recycling or repurposing lithium batteries:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1682-5
Granted there might be another battery breakthrough that could resolve this:
https://www.androidauthority.com/graphene-batteries-explaine...
At this stage, we should be exploring all options as some are likely not to pan out as expected.
Hybrid vehicles are still an economical option, preferably paired with high-efficiency ICEs, and could tide us over until better energy storage options become available.
Making oil a non-fossil fuel could be the best of both worlds.
It's a thing:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biogasoline
> Biogasoline/Biopetrol is gasoline produced from biomass such as algae
>> Companies such as Diversified Energy Corporation are developing approaches to take triglyceride inputs and through a process of deoxygenation and reforming (cracking, isomerizing, aromatizing, and producing cyclic molecules) producing biogasoline. This biogasoline is intended to match the chemical, kinetic, and combustion characteristics of its petroleum counterpart, but with much higher octane levels. Others are pursuing similar approaches based on hydrotreating
You have to weigh it against the benefits to judge it.
A simple truth, yet so very often ignored.
It doesn't have to, biogas/syngas and by extension ethanol can be synthesized from just about anything (with various levels of input energy depending on cellulose levels), all you need is basic bioreactors/fermentation from organic material to yield CH3CH2OH (Ethanol) [1}. I met a guy with a syngas company from Germany that was doing that and he told me things like switch-grass in Brazil were a boon for them.
I could easily see this being a viable use of compost material, I'm thinking of low hanging fruit like grass trimmings, and food waste found in local communities that's created and requires additional energy to transport afterward, and yield ethanol from when energy usage is low from local power stations/renewable energy sources. Also, eco-centric places like Boulder County compost bins are readily accessible and are separated (and fined if not) this includes the restaurant Industry, which have to use biodegradable bags, making separation relatively easy to other counties in the US.
In CO there is a startup/company that takes composted material, and creates rich potting soil to gardeners and the MJ industry:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestreptalks/2017/04/10/on-a...
When I was doing my farming apprenticeship in Switzerland, it was common for every Dorf/Community to have a distiller in some capacity; in my case it was the apple and pear orchid owner who would create schnapps for anyone who brought sufficient material for a fee.
I got to know him, and he brought me on his farm/orchid for a few jobs when he found out I had spent some time on a Vineyard in Croatia and had a background in Biology--I helped make wine and Rakija in Croatia, as it was a simple reaction, at scale to sell to support the farm as horticulture was only 15% of profit that season and a 'better use of my time.'
The language barrier with the Swiss farmer was intense at times, (Mundarts are hard) but I realized that this was all sanctioned with the local canton: such that if he collected a tax on their behalf on the yielded amount of alcohol everything/anything he charged per hour of labour was his to keep. He would then report that to the canton come tax time.
It's really a viable method to reduce (perceived) waste and turn into a Value Added Product--local farmers/residents brought batches of fermented cherries/apricots/apples/pears to this distiller that were unfit for Market or just local waste in their yard to make family schnapps. Rather than like the US where, as I found out during my undergrad, the State requires you taint the Ethanol synthesized in a lab to ensure its not consumable and deter 'bootleggers.'
Personally, at the time I thought it would be a viable alternative to using dirty diesel on the various amounts of farm equipment: tractors, combines, haulers etc... as MPG is not really a big concern as much as cost of operation/job is. But if E85 could be produced locally to run cars then all the better. I do love the sound E85 inline 6 engines make (JZ and RB series) at the track.
1: https://projects.ncsu.edu/project/foodengineer/231/notes/bio...