Gasoline or Ethanol?
Published Tue, Mar 13 2007 4:26 PM
Ethanol is a renewable energy source right? It burns cleaner that gasoline right? Nobody ever complained about an ethanol spill polluting pristine waters after an ethanol tanker ran aground right? We can reduce our dependence on foreign oil by switching to ethanol instead of gasoline right?
These are the arguments I hear from "environmentalists" that want to replace our gasoline with ethanol. There's a few problems with them though.
If (and it's a real BIG IF) global warming is caused by the dumping of CO2 into our atmosphere by the burning of fossil fuels how does switching to ethanol fix the problem? When you burn ethanol you get CO2 and H2O, the same as when you burn fossil fuels. You still get CO and a few other things as well, maybe not as much as with gasoline, but the point is, burning ethanol is still going to produce two of the most powerful greenhouse gasses there are, CO2 and H2O.
Sure, growing the corn that is used to create the ethanol will consume some of the CO2 as the corn plants turn CO2 and H2O into sugar. But that's not the only part of the process. When those little yeast cells start converting the sugar into alcohol, guess what one of the byproducts is... That's right, CO2.
How about all the fertilizer used to grow the corn? Where does the runoff go? That's right, into our lakes and streams. More pollution.
Burning ethanol produces energy, it's true. Making ethanol consumes energy. Some of that energy comes from the sun, but there's other energy consumed in the processes. Fertilizer has to be made and transported. Water has to be transported. Most of the corn plant isn't converted into ethanol either. What happens to all those corn stalks? Maybe some of it does get used, I don't really know.
Using corn to produce ethanol to fuel our cars is a bit crazy. The corn that gets mashed and fermented to make ethanol isn't used as animal feed (some of the byproducts might be, but only some of them), and it doesn't go onto the table for dinner either. If we don't increase corn production to offset what we're burning in our engines then there's less food for our animals, or our tables.
And what there is will be more expensive as demand increases. Corn farmers have got to love this scam. I don't though.
Sure, I can afford to pay a bit more for corn. It doesn't stop there though. What happens to the price of chicken when the price of chicken feed goes up by 40%? Do you think the chicken growers are just going to absorb that cost? I don't. I think the price of chicken is going to go up. And so is the price of beef. And leather.
We already put ethanol into our gasoline during the winter, at least out here in the Pacific Northwest we do. Regular unleaded gasoline contains up to 10% ethanol during the winter. That's about as much as your car can handle without modifications. E85 (85% ethanol) fuel is available now at some locations across the country. Your typical car requires modifications to use it as a fuel.
Using ethanol as a motor fuel makes it more expensive to run the motor. Aluminum engines have a tendency to corrode when alcohol is used as a fuel. Alcohol washes past the cylinder rings more easily than gasoline too, resulting in contaminated oil that needs to be changed more often.
Alcohol isn't really that great a motor fuel. A race motor that runs on alcohol needs a special carburetor to handle the larger volume of fuel required to make power. You need almost four times as much fuel to make power with alcohol in a racing motor as with gasoline.
Alcohol does burn cooler though, so you can get much higher compression ratios when you use it as a fuel without having to worry about detonation (pinging). Higher compression ratios are where the power in an alcohol motor comes from. Higher compression ratios also require much more attention to detail when building an engine.
All of this means more expensive engines, and more fuel consumption.
Converting our economy from using gasoline to ethanol is a great idea. That is, it's a great idea if you're a corn grower, an engine builder, or a politician that wants to make points with the environmentalists. It's a horrible idea if you own a car that isn't ready to run on ethanol... or if you eat.
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Angel responded with:
 | hey Perri!..ty for stoppin by at my joint...I dont trust anything the environmentalist whackos say..but this does seem complex doesnt it?..:) |
Perri Nelson responded with:
 | No, I don't think it's that complex. It's just another example of unintended consequences.
I don't believe that a lot of so-called environmentalists are really interested in protecting our environment. The majority of their leadership are actually big government socialists and anti-capitalists.
When you look at it that way, a lot of the consequences of the "ethanol" movement may not even appear to be unintentional. |
Avoiceofreason responded with:
 | Although the value of ethanol may be minimal, I think it is a good step that some actual work is being done to reduce the stress that energy needs place on this nation. Every feasable possibility should be explored, including, solar, nuclear, oceanic currents, wind-farming, geothermal, to reduce the amounts of fuel we need to import from people who don't like us too much! To me its as much an energy independence issue, and not being beholden to OPEC as it is an environmental issue. |
Perri Nelson responded with:
| Energy independence is a worthwhile goal. But even at peak production, converting all of our corn crop to ethanol will only provide about 12% of the fuel needed to replace gasoline.
We wold do far better to open up and use our own domestic sources of petroleum. We have enough domestic sources that we could eliminate our dependence on foreign oil completely for several decades. Instead the "environmentalists" place roadblocks in front of any and all schemes to develop our domestic supply.
There are tremendous untapped reserves of petroleum available in the Gulf of Mexico. Environmentalists have placed roadblock after roadblock in the way of our development of them though. Meanwhile, those same "environmentalists" don't seem to mind, in fact, some of them even praise the fact that Fidel Castro is drilling for and developing the oil beds in the Gulf.
I agree that we should look for alternative energy sources, Solar power isn't going to move very many trains, planes or automobiles. Neither will oceanic currents, wind-farming, or geothermal energy, although they all have potential we haven't begun to tap.
Our Democratic Congressmen certainly are doing their best to block wind-farming. Sen. Kerry and Sen. Kennedy both object to having a wind-farm offshore near their homes, even though the proposed wind farm would be so far offshore that it couldn't be seen from land.
Nuclear power holds the greatest potential, but dealing with the waste is problematic. We also have to deal with propagandists who worry about a "China Syndrome". Meanwhile, France gets most of its power from nuclear sources, and has for quite some time without any accidents or problems.
Ethanol is definitely NOT the answer though. It doesn't make sense to burn our food supply in the name of energy independence or environmentalism when better alternatives are available. |
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