Umm...oil hasn't hit $70/BBL yet; in fact, after the past couple of days, it's nearing $50 again. I agree, though, that the days of Arbitrarily Unaffordable Gasoline are nigh, if not already upon us.

Ethanol is intriguing, especially if you can live with the shorter cruising range (assuming you keep the same tank size), but the first thing I'd look into is how much $$ it's going to cost to run the still. You'll need electricity for that...lots of it to make meaningful amounts of ETOH...and at least where I come from, electricity comes from oil...