Certainly, ethanol has been lauded as the alternative fuel to gas. The praises we heap on ethanol, hmmm...but have we really looked into the problems it is associated with?



Steps taken to popularize ethanol



Recently, US government has taken many steps to solve the gas prices that has fuelled the demands of ethanol. Most striking from all these, is the legislation to reduce foreign oil imports. Besides, many states in US require mixing of gas with ethanol and early May, government stopped all protections it gave to sellers of the more toxic type of fuel. The ensuing problem is that America is now faced with an ethanol supply problem where the demand exceeds the supply, which again has resulted in mounting prices.



Results of the steps taken



You will be surprised to know that these legislations have increases the price of ethanol more than 50 percent in six weeks. Wholesale prices also shot up to nearly $4 per gallon.



U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar Renewable Energy Proposal



Currently, U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar is promoting a bill that would force retailers to provide increasing amounts of renewable fuels. The bill seeks to get 7.5 billion gallons of fuel from renewable sources in about a decade and requires 60 billion gallons by 2030. Hurt is confident about reaching this figure before 2008. The problem is that even if every bushel of corn produced in America today were consumed for ethanol, only about 20 percent of America’s demand would be satisfied with renewable fuels.



Frank O’Donnell, an advocate for stricter clean air laws with the Washington, D.C.-based Clean Air Watch, on the other hand is less confident. He says: We are not going to be able to rely on ethanol from corn exclusively, unless we are willing to trade fuel imports for food imports.



In addition to this, ethanol is less energy efficient than gasoline. It produces only about 70 percent of the energy that pure gasoline does which means that consumers would be using more gas than gasoline for the same distance.



Alternative



O’Donnell shares: In an ideal world, (ethanol) would not be produced from corn, but the general environmental perspective is that we like ethanol.



Do we really? If so, I think American should follow the Brazilian model where ethanol is produced from sugarcane not corn as it requires less money to produce.



Via: Fortwayne