Dear Madai,

Thank you for actually reading my post, I appreciate your response.

But with all due respect, I think you are missing the point.

Try slowing down - don't try to make everything equivalent. Lots of other things have to be considered:

#1 Horses do better on hay - with a couple handsfuls of oats (not corn) from time to time. Try putting hay in your flex-fuel vehicle - and then add the BTU cost of creating the vehicle in the first place as well as all the other inputs for the creation of whatever fuel you propose using.

#2 Why would I want to go 100 miles? What do you want to do once you get there? Maybe I just want to stay at home and plow and fertilize my garden. I don't think an E85 Prius would be useful for that purpose.

#3 In a post fossil-fuel era new energy supplies will be dependent upon the carrying capacity of the earth to produce them. You may, in fact have to have a horse to plow the field to plant the corn that will be turned into ethanol - and the cost of the ethanol may approach $50 per gallon.

#4 Perhaps the true proof of the goodness of God is the amiable nature of those gentle giants, the Percheron, the Shire, and the Houyhnhnm (Willie Nelson's favorite) which are not made for riding, but who are still tolerant of such inferior species as we.

Like true happiness, the new post fossil-fuel era will require a change of consciousness.