GH

Ethanol Gets Less Attention in Bush's State of the Union Address

Simple. The ethanol support paid for in 2006 by Big Agriculture's lobby, was delivered in 2007's SOTU address. In 2007, Bush's approval ratings, and influence over legislation, went to near zero; consequently, so did the interests from lobbiests; consequently, so did the alt-energy part of his SOTU address.

He dedicated most of his address to the "fight against terrorism". We already know where Cheney will be going a year from now: back to Halliburton (this time, with Bush in tow). This is why they're trying to cut a deal with the Iraqi "government" to bind the U.S. to perpetual oversight: to fill HAL's coffers.

Ethanol Growth Faces Tremendous Obstacles

The four points you quoted about ethanol's natural limitations are correct and present an interesting contrast with butanol, which is a different alcohol-family chemical that can just as easily be made from the same feedstocks as ethanol using similar processes or others (such as Fischer-Tropsch) that are well-established. Here are the four points, rewritten for butanol:
• has 95% of the energy content of gasoline (and generally produces more power and lower emissions in internal combustion engines due to more complete combustion)
• can be transported in any pipeline that can carry gasoline or oil
• can replace a gasoline grade point of sale with minor infrastructure changes (e.g. pump re-calibration)
• has (at this time) little support by car manufacturers

BP and DuPont are developing butanol biofuels. Competing against ethanol, given the 3 advantages listed above, my money is on butanol. Ethanol is a good MTBE replacement but a relatively poor fuel.