A few points-
French experiments seem to show that "usage of ethanol at 100% can reduce carbon dioxide by 70% relative to standard gasoline."
"Carbon dioxide emission results are very dependent on certain economic hypotheses in terms of evaluation of by-products and the prcess used to obtain the fuel..."
http://ec.europa.eu/research/agriculture/pdf/biofuels_en.pdf

Ethanol has many disadvantages, including much higher cost than gasoline, food-fuel competition at high production levels, Cold starts difficult.
Biofuel production by expansion of crop fields and/or harvesting of forests for wood is destructive to the environment.

Coals do have hydrogen- Approx. 3x10¹⁰ tons of hydrogen in the world's recoverable coal reserves.
See "The Use of Sulfur to extract hydrogen from coal," Justino and Schobert, Pennsylvania State Univ.
"A conceptual process is presented in which sulfur is converted to hydrogen sulfide by reaction with coal, the hydrogen sulfide in turn is converted to the desired hydrogen and to sulfur, and the sulfur is recycled through the reactor. The by-product is a good quality coke, but may also have other applications as a carbon material."
[Many coals are rich in sulfur].
Interesting article-
http://www.engr.psu.edu/h2E/Professors/Dr._Schobert,_Harold/Hydrogen%20from%20coal.pdf