"Currently ethanol gets only two-thirds of the miles per gallon of conventional gasoline," says Dr. Walden, a North Carolina Cooperative Extension specialist. "So people need to keep that in mind when they are looking to buy ethanol. They are not going to get the same miles per gallon."

"Another issue," says Walden, "is efficiency of production. Some studies show that to produce ethanol it actually takes more energy than what you get out of it as a fuel. Now companies are working on that, but it certainly is an issue.

"And then the final one is subsidies. Right now, ethanol can’t compete head-to-head with gasoline without public subsidies -- both of the ethanol production as well as subsidies of the corn-based fuel.

"So these are all issues that we have to keep in mind," he concludes, "from the public perspective about ethanol."