because ethanol is coming and in a few years

I'll believe it when I see it.  The EROEI studies I've seen so far only make this worthwhile for Sugar in Brazil(Maybe).  I've yet to see the data for corn ethanol or other North American crop that says this will be an energy positive investment.  Consider also that crops rely heavily on oil/NG to plow, harvest, fertilize and pesticide their crops, I find it convenient that most Ethanol studies I've seen ignore the energy inputs of those actions.

it will be mostly sustainable

Either it is, or it isn't, its kind of the same problem when people say, they're almost not pregnant.  Mostly sustainable is another way to say not sustainable.  You might argue it will take a long time for the degradation of the process to catch up with itself, but ultimately it is not sustainable if its only "mostly sustainable".

You clearly favor oil company subsidies as you refuse to talk about them on this blog.

And you apparently clearly favor Ethanol without fair consideration to oil and how it impacts the ability of Ethanol to be viable.  But hey, Kettle meet Pot.

Yet another person who doesn't understand what an ad hominem actually is. Look it up. And ad hominem is when you starting casting aspersions on my arguments by making false accusations against me, like "you must be getting paid to do this."

You clearly favor oil company subsidies as you refuse to talk about them on this blog.

So, you ask me about oil company subsidies; I tell you I am against them; and you announce that I clearly favor them. If you think you already know the answers, and aren't willing to listen, why bother asking the question?

I have no trouble at all talking about oil company subsidies. Show a case where I "refuse to talk about them." You have been guilty of having your facts wrong on a great number of occasions, and this is just another example.

I would also point out that you and Blume were claiming oil company subsidies equivalent to the entire federal budget of the U.S. government. I don't consider you exactly the most credible source out there.

No tax breaks were given to ethanol producers to run their tractors, etc on ethanol.

Yet ethanol is subsidized, is it not? That is a tax break. So instead of relying on cheap oil to run their tractors, why not run them on tax-subsidized ethanol? Do you know why they don't? Because the ethanol industry in the U.S. is completely dependent on cheap fossil fuels (your pipe dreams notwithstanding). Wake up and smell the coffee.

If you have an actual argument to make, now's the time. I am too busy to mess with trolls right now.

It appears to be by design: Maybe the omnipotent Oil Interests (KSA, Integrateds, Drillers, Refiners, Autos, ....). The most money they are throwing is at Fuel Cells and Hydrogen and we know that that path is Thermodynamically not feasible. They are not going to defeat the second law of thermodynamics (ChEs and MechEs should understand). Some professor pointed out as such in a letter to the editor about 12-18 months ago in Chemical Engineering Progress (AIChE monthly magazine) in response to a nonsensical article from some fellow from the DOE. The DOE guys response was again nonsense.

Therefore throw money at something that YOU KNOW is a dud and will not threaten the fossil fuel franchise. The only problem here is that the world is not America-centric to the same extent and some other places that may not have the same access to Oil will commercialize something else. They did kill permanently that Fuel Cell/Hydrogen conference in Switzerland a few months ago - with the organizers saying that thermodynamics said that it would never work.

The silver lining is that since Fuel Cells and Hydrogen are being pushed institutionally and by GM in the states maybe there is still Oil available for another 15-20 years. What do you think RR ;-)
Maybe I can get another big guzzler and barrel down I-95 some more.

nobody with big bucks has seen fit to spend on a factory to make [stirling engines] at a commercial price, since they are intrinsically more expensive than IC engines

We should add to that about how Internal Combustion Engines (ICE) cheat on the economics front through the magic of the unaccounted-for "externalities".

Every heat engine has to exhaust some of its heat into the ambient.

ICE's do it by belching noxious hot gases right into the atmosphere.

Stirlings have a self-contained working fluid that nevers gets dumped into the atmosphere. But still the Stirling must include a means for exhausting its outflowing heat. In the schematics they show it as the "cold" connection or the "heat sink". In reality it is an expensive radiator --not equivalent to the engine-block cooling radiator of a water-cooled ICE. Roughly 50% of the heat dump of an ICE comes out its tail pipe --at no "cost". That's where they cheat. That's where the claim about being inexpensive is a lie. Inexpensive to whom? Not to the young child nearby who is coughing with asthama.

I had an Irish girlfriend who just hated it when yanks would say,  'It's Quarter of Three..'..  We know what we mean, even if the imperfect idioms don't always satisfy the literal-minded.