Processing fossil fuels has become an integral part of our economy and our society. Much of our technology, the stuff that we depend on, was created in a world where they could depend upon fuel like diesel and petrol, fuel derived from fossil fuels, and changing this has yet to be done, despite the imminent and increasingly large disaster that seems to be coming our way as a result.
There are a lot of different technologies which are in development, all vying to be the viable alternative to fossil fuels, but so far without success. There are a few different issues which seem to be impeding this change; how much it costs to produce and develop the infrastructure needed for it, such as; battery technology for cars, solar panel production and more.
When you look at how all of the new technologies seek to deal with these issues, ethanol has a rather unique benefit, in that the requirements to shift over to using ethanol are relatively lower than other methods of reducing pollution. Ethanol can be burnt to produce energy, in the same way diesel and petrol can, which means that a lot of systems and technologies that we already have in place, and have spent trillions developing, can be maintained.