While most familiar as the form of alcohol found in alcoholic beverages (C2H5OH), The largest single use of ethanol is as a motor fuel and fuel additive. Also known as ethyl alcohol or grain alcohol, it is a flammable, colorless chemical compound, and most often found in alcoholic beverages. Ethanol is a versatile solvent, and is miscible with water and most organic liquids. Most new cars sold in Brazil are flexible-fuel vehicles that can run on ethanol, gasoline, or any blend of the two. In the United States, ethanol is most commonly blended with gasoline as a blend of up to 10% ethanol, nicknamed "gasohol". E85 is a blend of 15% gasoline and 85% Ethanol. more

Humans have consumed ethanol for at least several thousand years. The earliest known written record of an alcoholic beverage was in the Egyptian Book of the Dead, dated approximately 3000 B.C. Nondistilled alcoholic beverages were likely to have first been made inadvertently as a result of natural fermentation. more

Ethanol is a clean-burning, high-octane fuel that is produced from renewable sources. Ethanol is domestically produced from corn, and helps reduce America's dependence upon foreign sources of energy. American-made, renewable ethanol directly displaces crude oil we would need to import, offering our country critically needed independence and security from foreign sources of energy. Fossil fuel-based gasoline is the largest source of man-made carcinogens and the number one source of toxic emissions. Ethanol reduces harmful tailpipe emissions of carbon monoxide, particulate matter, oxides of nitrogen, and other ozone-forming pollutants. more