Do people still buy this Ethanol is good for the enviornment BS?

Question

It sounds good on paper until you find out

1) It cuts down forests to make room for the agriculture

2) it takes more energy+waste in producing it then it saves as a fuel

3) it increases costs of food for both humans and livestock

and those are just 3 point off top of my head.

Couldn't we take that money and invest into making cheaper solar energy available?

Answer 1

The problem is that ethanol was never about fuel, it was just an excuse to throw more subsidies to the farm lobby.  So even though everyone knows that it's wasteful, there will be ethanol mandates and subsidies for decades to come.

Answer 2

I've also heard ethanol is more corrosive to a car's engine.  Ain't that great.  Another way to get money from us, shorten the lifetime of our cars that cost some $25,000 and then punish us with "carbon offset taxes" because we have to drive to work.

Answer 3

Ethanol was meant to reduce the amount of CO2 emissions but do you realize the fermentation needed to make ethanol produces huge amounts of CO2.

When ordinary diesel is burnt in a diesel engine  it produces CO2 so what the h**l are we mucking around with biodiesel for.

Your point 3 hits the nail on the head. Making food expensive and you have the answer to depopulate the over populated countries like China and India.

Answer 4

Well, yes, people do still buy it, obviously. But they're dumb as h**l, or just not paying much attention to anything.

4) Agricultural runoff is creating a huge dead zone in the gulf of Mexico, as well as truly messing up the aquatic balance of the great lakes (Largest reservoir of surface fresh water on the planet)

5)Messes with the food supply and security of many nations of the global south due to an increasingly globalized world, which leads to violence and political and social turmoil.

6) is a band-aid solution to the real issue of our society being structured in a completely inefficient and unsustainable way.

7) draws attention away from real, viable solutions to environmental, social, political, economic, and health issues.

Answer 5

Do the solar panel people vote Republican? Are there enough of them to make up for the lost farm state votes?

Answer 6

I hope not. We can't afford it.

Another government created crisis.........

Answer 7

Live and learn!

Point four: converting all the cropland for gasoline production is not enough, unless we can do better with cellulous.

Some significant breakthroughs on the cost of solar. Let's go all the way! Take the trillion dollars that we will be spending on the war in Iraq and install solar panels on every house in the country. Say goodbye to oil dependence.

Answer 8

people these days just believe what they hear and don't care enough to actually look into the facts. Its sad.

Answer 9

I never bought it in the first place.  Ethanol is c**p and the people that believed that Ethanol is good for the environment are not really looking at how to solve the worlds problems.  There is an organization, Nanosolar, that started making cheaper solar that you can roll-on, so you can roll it into cars, houses, etc.  I think solar should be made so everyone can afford it.  It would solve so many problems.  We wouldn't really need dams anymore either which kill 50 to 70% of salmon.  Solar houses, solar cars, solar bikes etc.)  People also need to consume less of course.