Popular Mechanics has a pretty good overview on different alternative fuel options to straight gasoline. They cover ethanol, methanol, bio-diesel, natural gas, electrics, and hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles.
Unfortunately the results of their summary chart are a bit biased. Their control vehicle is a new Honda Civic. Unfortunately since generally only larger cars and trucks are available as factory flex-fuel vehicles, they based their flex-fuel vehicle comparisons on Fords 3.0L Taurus which is a significantly larger car. This shows E85 ethanol and M85 methanol in a pretty bad light.
Using their estimates of mileage changes, a flex fuel Civic would have a fuel economy of ~27 mpg on ethanol and ~21 mpg on methanol. Using these numbers, a 3000 mile trip on E85 would cost $267 and M85 would cost $413. E85 is therefore pretty competitive with standard gas which requires $213. They also quote bio-diesel as costing $231 for the same trip, but that is only for 100% biodiesel. B20 (a 20% bio/80% petro blend) is actually cheaper than gasoline per mile.
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