If you want to compare the price of e85 to regular, divide the gas price by 1.33 (according to Car and Driver July 2006).
An example:
Reg $2.99 / 1.33 = 2.25
E85 $2.59
Regular ends up being $.34 cheaper.
The July 2006 Car and Driver had an excellent section on E85. Here's the web version:
http://www.caranddriver.com/features...-promises.html
The only plus sides to it that I can see is that the E85 industry creates jobs and if you drive a turbo car you can run more boost.
Other then that I think it's probably one of the biggest waste of resources of all time. I'm really shocked that no one looked at the numbers before making a federal mandate to boost production.