Ethanol sounds good reducing oil imports but the negatives any many.

http://www.oregonlive.com/environmen...sis_quest.html
Rice University analysis questions U. S. ethanol subsidies
Federal taxpayers forked over $1.95 a gallon in ethanol subsidies in 2008 on top of the retail gasoline price, a new white paper from Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy found.

The University of Minnesota has also studied ethanol you can Google it. When you are Googling it you are likely to come across sites that think it's a good idea. Those sites are put up by the guys pocketing the $1.95 a gallon of our tax money.

By memory this is what I recall ethanol doing for us;

reduced fuel milage
corrosive to metal and rubber parts of the fuel system
higher grain prices filtering through the entire food system
tax subsidies of $1.95 per gallon
very inefficient in that it consumes a great deal of energy to produce / Biodiesel from soybeans, however is very efficient in this regard

Your state may have pure gas - Google Non-Oxygenated and your state. Or if you are aware of car collector's clubs in your area you can ask them. If you are in Minnesota this car club publishes a list of stations that carry gas with no fillers. Click Features to DL the list. www.msra.com/

Here is what the pumps look like in Minnesota

 

Everything you said is accurate. Even this can be an accurate statement when talking about equipment (pumps for example) that were designed for pure gasoline. E85 can and will damage this equipment. E10 will not. Most of the sources from a google search that tell you that are pro ethanol while those that tell you the opposite are anti ethanol. What most of the anti ethanol articles mention is that the failures occur when being utilized with the E85 blend and only having been designed for up to E15.

Like I said, I'm not an ethanol advocate or a tree hugger. Does it provide less energy? Yes. Does it require a lot of energy to produce? You bet. Are there numerous economic reasons to not produce it? Absolutely. There are just as many myths about E10 (again E85 is a totally different topic) and catastrophic engine failure is one of them. It's always makes me think of the old "synthetic oil is so slick it causes bearing skate" thing. Proven not to be true time and time again but it's still out there. If you are against it, fine. Just be informed and be against it for legitimate reasons.

 

Certainly modern fuel systems have been designed to resist corrosion from ethanol since its introduction into the fuel supply. Pure gasoline is the holy grail to antique & collector car clubs for this reason. It's just that I don't want to put something into my bike or car that is a just a little corrosive and is ok if I don't use it at a rate that exceeds 10%.

The only anti ethanol people that have read are guys at the University of Minnesota and Rice University with PHD's after their names and they don't have a dog in the fight. In fact the U of M is right smack in the middle of corn country, ethanol being an important component to our state's economy.