Fantastic point. Go back to those articles, read them, look up their cited research and post back here with a link to any of them that have cited actual data that was gathered in the last 10 years. If you find any, look at the source, and decide if they are in a position to know what they are talking about.

What I mean is, would you prefer an agricultural study done by a PhD in agriculture from the University of Iowa, or one from a professor of insect ecology at Cornell?

There are people with lots of money that are propping up some sub-standard research as fact, and ignoring the preponderence of research out there that is a direct contradiction of those disproven theories. Did you know that the researcher who first introduced Indirect Land Usage theories has since recanted them as totally unprovable, but that fact has been ignored and the California Air Resources Board is charging forward with penalties based on a failed theory?

Gah! I'm sick to death of hearing this stuff. 100% pure ethanol has been used for ages as a medium for storing metals that are highly susceptible to corrosion. It is true that ethanol is highly SOLVENT, and likes to dissolve lesser grades of rubber and plastic.

Certain rubber types, like nitrile, are unaffected by ethanol. Do you know how much more nitrile o-rings cost than regular ones? Nothing. Do you know how much more a better grade of plastic costs? Next to nothing. By GM's own admission, the cost of making a car E85 capable is about $7, and my bet is that it the cost of the FlexFuel emblem they stick on the back.

Corn ethanol plants could easily be self-supporting, just as sugarcane ethanol plants are. Simply put, DDG is more valuable as a livestock feed than it is as a source of needed BTUs. Sugarcane bagasse is not useful for anything other than burning, afaik.

Then again, how does pumping oil into a refinery make it self-sustaining?

You are talking theoretical numbers, not the reality of ICE. You are absolutely correct that if you could design engines that were identical in every respect (fuel/air mixture, compression, ignition, combustion dynamics), the higher potential energy of gasoline would win out. In reality, with the considerable de-tuning that consumer ICEs are designed with, your theoretical numbers are not realized. In terms of what you can do to make an engine more efficient and still be reliable, running high ethanol blends is a pretty good way to go. I'm doing it as we speak, getting comparable mileage with E30 in a mildly modified GM 3.8L ICE.

The vapor pressure is an off-the-cuff way of knowing how well a fuel will perform at a given compression. If it ignites prematurely due to high compression, there is engine damage. Don't take my word for it though. Ask race car drivers who burn alcohol. Sprint car teams know all about it. You can do LOTS of things with alcohol that is just not possible with standard pump gas.

Again, I don't want to discount the truth of the BTU disparity, but engines don't run on BTU potential alone. There are a host of other factors. In my opinion, and in the opinion of a lot of people that are smarter than me, the disparity in potential energy is more than offset by a number of other characteristics that make ethanol a better ICE fuel.

Actually, there is a 90% petroleum-based fuel mandate. You have it backwards.

Yes, most of the dollars go to the petroleum companies as an incentive to blend.

Energy density is a boodoggle. Corn is useful because we CAN feed it to cows, we CAN turn it into fuel, and we still have lots of it. In fact, corn that is used for ethanol does not just vanish. The starch is used, and the remaining 40% is livestock feed called DDG. Why change crops when the one we have lots of will do just fine. The issue is not 'Food vs Fuel'. It is really 'Food AND Fuel'.

Look at the current USDA numbers. Ethanol is a net energy gain. It has been for a long time.

Here are some facts.
1. Corn has been subsidized for decades, keeping the cost of corn below the cost of production.
2. Third world agriculture cannot compete with our subsidized grain exports. Therefore, they have no sustainable agricultural production. If we use the grain for something else, they starve. If we use the grain for something else and the prices go up, they begin growing their own grain again. Our farm subsidies have been a foot on the head of the third world. They don’t need a handout, they need us to play fair so they can have real economies themselves.
3. Alternative fuels are actively hindered by grocery manufacturers and big oil companies. They want cheap high fructose corn syrup and a continued 90% petroleum mandate. Don’t kid yourself. Follow the money.
4. Without incentives, we’ll never get off petroleum. It costs so little to produce and has existing infrastructure paid for with our tax dollars. There is the other problem of the most powerful cartel in the world, OPEC. Do you think they are happy about our efforts to wean our nation off of their product and stem the tide of petrodollars?
5. Food prices are affected 2% by the cost of grain and 92% by the cost of petroleum, according the USDA.

I’m all for getting rid of subsidies. If we get rid of ethanol subsidies, let’s level the playing field first. Get rid of petroleum subsidies and make the EPA remove the artificial 90% gasoline mandate, too. Then we can see how things really shake out.

BTW, if an engine is properly designed for ethanol, it will get better mileage than with gas. The higher vapor pressure allows higher compression than is possible with gas. In fact, oil companies have used this fact to worsen the grades of gas they sell, knowing the 10% ethanol blend will prevent consumers from complaining about knocking.

The subsidies should not be permanent, but then again, how long have we been subsidizing and providing tax incentives to oil companies that continually rake in billions in profit? Can we at least be fair about our stupidity?

Memristors are most interesting not because of their ability to store data after power is removed, but for their ability to store any value between one and zero (on - no resistance, and off - no current). The non-volatile nature of the circuit will probably lead to early commercialization, but the really cool stuff will happen when people like Stanford's Professor Boahen get their hands on these things. The ability to store data in a non-discrete way will surely help to speed the development of processors that are very efficient by emulating biological methods of processing data. I have been following the development of memristors with great interest, and I would like to be the ten-millionth person to hail the imminent invention of our AI Overlords!