Flash point has little impact on fuel burned inside an engine. Octane is the determining factor in how engine fuel burns. Ethanol is much higher octane than pump gasoline, and some race gas for that matter. That's a major reason people see less efficient results than desired. Ethanol doesn't have less energy potential than gasoline, it's less efficient in the sense that you get less energy per dollar spent on production than you do with gasoline. Slim Shady seems to be the only person here who has any ****ing clue what the **** they're talking about.
You get worse mileage, because ethanol is ~105 octane. Octane is the rating of a fuel's ability to resist detonation. The higher the octane rating, the more compression needed to get the fuel to ignite efficiently. Most cars do not provide the compression needed to efficiently ignite ethanol, which results in more fuel being wasted. It has nothing to do with ethanol being a mistake or a bad source of fuel. It has to do with most cars not being capable of effectively using ethanol.
Ethanol is in it's infant stages. Corn has been found to be one of the least efficient sources of ethanol, but it is the source that technology supports at this point. As technology improves, other ethanol sources will come to the forefront and ethanol will become more of a mainstay in the market. I own a flex fuel vehicle, and I see more power, much smoother idle/acceleration, and cooler running temps on E85, and only a minor decrease in economy (1-2 combined mpg), and a difference of a few dollars per fill-up (in my favor).
