Europeans See The Ramifications Of Ethanol Use As Unacceptable

Do these Europeans consider anything other than Diesel to be acceptable?

Yes, they actually view hybrids favorably.

From most Euro's comments here, I'm not sure about that.

The way to go is electric. No emissions at all!.. for the good of the planet.
www.teslamotors.com

Ethanol works for US / Brazil cause ther eis plenty of agricultural land. Plus, its music to the ears of all the agri industry lobbyists as they get billions of subsidies to grow more corn / sugar.

As far as hybrids go, there's still the hurdles of building up the battery infrastructure (building, maintenance, recycling, disposal, etc.), significantly increasing the longevity of the batteries, unit cost of the battery pack, and where they're going to store the dead ones as hybrids take an increasing market share.
IMHO, I think Toyota is taking a pretty heavy risk devoting so much to hybrid technology.

AFarCE:

"...there's still the hurdles of building up the battery infrastructure (building, maintenance, recycling, disposal, etc.), significantly increasing the longevity of the batteries."

are these phantom hurdles? batteries have not gotten worn out yet even on the 1st generation hybrids. no one's noticed ANY problems yet with disposal issues.

a totally red herring argument.

So how is this a red herring when I'm just responding to Huu76? In any case, do you deny that the batteries will wear out? Do you deny that there won't be a need for processing centers that recycle or dispose of hazardous battery chemicals? How about when people get into accidents and need a battery replacement? They will eventually build newer, better generations of batteries, so what of the old ones? I'm not just talking about 5 or 10 years down the line, but later than that. It's another aspect that needs to be worried about in the long term, something that diesels don't have.

You should follow your own advice and get your products straight first. That "car battery" (the 12v lead acid we all know and love) you're referring to is in hybrid cars as well. It is a different product from the hybrid drive batteries. You didn't think the drivetrain battery was the only battery in hybrids did you? In any case, that in itself isn't as big a problem because that industry is mature and everything is already set in place, though not perfect. As your article shows, there will inevitably be some that end up in the dumps.

Second, here's a few important lines from your own little article:
"There are also concerns about the environmental impacts of nickel mining, and apparent challenges with fully recycling the nickel used in hybrid batteries."
"Hybrids are still sold an relatively low numbers. As a result, large-scale environmental threats from hybrid batteries are not immediate."
Again, technology will improve, but it will not be quick and one problem is being traded for another.

Third, subsidizing diesel to push people into cars getting better MPG, using less fuel, hence burning less HCs, doesn't sound much like a scam to me. It might be more government intervention than some might like, but there is a purpose behind it. Think about it. If you drive 20k miles per year, given a fixed amount of miles you drive, the more MPG you get, the less fuel you'll burn and the less emissions you'll toss up into the air.

Now, back to the diesel vs. hybrid issue. With the diesel, you're not getting as high a MPG, but in real world driving (I'm sure you already know the EPA estimates on hybrid MPG is quite inflated) it isn't a vast difference and you're not getting the added problems I mentioned above with the hybrids, you're just burning less fuel than gasoline.