As gas prices seem to only go higher, ethanol is being touted as the fuel of the future. The corn-based fuel is fantastic for farmers, but does it really save dollars for drivers.

Tonight in a News 25 investigation, Jeff Muniz puts ethanol to the test against regular unleaded gasoline.

Finding an E-85 pump is not easy but it's a high priority for Susan Adams. The farmer from Atlanta, Illinois, will even drive to Bloomington to get the 85% corn-based fuel in her tank.

"It's good for farmers and it's good for the environment," said Adams.

Terry Beachler isa gas staion owner who is against ehtanol. He said, "It's not good for consumers. We sell it here and I'll be very truthful...we make more money with ethanol."

Beachler is not a believer in ethanol even though the government gives him tax breaks for selling gas mixed with a 10% blend. He also says drivers are being duped by cheaper-costing ethanol and its poor miles per gallon.

So, News 25 decided to put the two fuels to the test. And, this is our test car, a 2007 Chevy Impala from Jim McComb. Sales Manager Kevin Lundquist, explain the details of this car.

He said, "This is a 3.5 Liter V-6 Impala from 2007. It's designed to run both on E-85 and traditional gasoline."

An emergency quarter to half gallon of gas got us to an E-85 station in Bartonville. We first filled up with five gallons of E-85, or a quarter of a tank on the gauge.

We took a loop on local highways, cruising 65 miles per hour to see how far we could go.

139 miles into this trip, we started to sputter a little bit so we got off at the exit on 474 in North Pekin. And, we have officially run out of E-85 in the McDonald's parking lot.

After another emergency fill up of a quarter to half gallon, we put in 5 gallons of regular unleaded at the same station. Again, that's a quarter of a tank.

We headed out on the same highways at the same speed. We blew past where we ran out of E-85 and where we started on Airport Road.

After 173.6 miles and somewhere between Peoria and Galesburg on westbound 74, we have finally run out of regular unleaded gas.

To recap, we filled up at the same gas station in Bartonville, took the same loop on the same highways and actually ended up going 25% further on regular unleaded.

Regular unleaded though cost $3.09 a gallon compared to $2.49 a gallon for E-85, that's 24% higher. Our test shows you'll save a few cents and go further by filling up with regular unleaded.

Mike Cotta is an ethanol researcher and said, "When you go to E-85, there clearly is a gap between the energy in a gallon of E-85 and conventional unleaded gasoline."

To Beachler, that gap is great enough where he's seeing no demand for the fuel.

"In fact, we've had customers that asked if we have ethanol in the gasoline and the answer is yes and they leave and go elsewhere."

But, don't tell the sales staff at Jim McComb there isn't a demand for flex fuel vehicles.

"In the last year and a half, there's really been an increase demand in the marketplace," said Lundquist.

More than 30% of the cars on McComb's lot are flex fuel and it's growing.

Some wonder, though, whether this is a demand being driven by the government.

President Bush just signed an energy bill that will increase renewable fuel production like ethanol from 7 billion gallons a year today to 36 billion gallons by 2022.

"Probably 15 billion gallons can be supplied by corn-based ethanol. But to make those more ambitious goals of 36 billion gallons, it's going to require that we have other materials that are recruited to make alcohol from," said Cotta.

The Ag Lab in Peoria is running tests to determine what those other materials may be.

Cotta also says even at 36 billion gallons, ethanol will only provide a quarter of the fuel drivers use.

"When people first started talking about ethanol, I think there was probably an oversell. Everybody jumped on the bandwagon and said that this is the thing that's going to solve all our problems. That's not likely to be true," said Cotta.

In 2001, Susan Adams was one of the first to buy a vehicle that could run on E-85. She just wonders what else her next car will run on.

She said, "It's not going to be one solution to foreign oil. E-85 is just one of those options."

An option that by no means is running on fumes.