ETHANOL is it good?

Question

A guy on Myspace said this how many of yall think this is ture

"ETHANOL SUCKS

Converting food into car fuel, you’ve got to be frickin’ kidding me. The 2 most basic necessities of life are food and water, and with over 2 billion people on this planet malnourished and starving we’re growing food to convert it into fuel for cars instead of using it to feed people……brilliant!!!

Why don’t we suck all the freshwater lakes dry and convert that to energy too while we’re at it. "

Answer 1

Um, ethanol kinda does suck, actually.  The government says (DOE, via MNDA)

http://www.mda.state.mn.us/renewable/ren...

that it takes 1 gallon worth of fossil fuel to make 1.34 gallons worth of ethanol.  That's TERRIBLE efficiency considering how much land it uses.   But it's great government pork!

Biodiesel is much better at 1 gallon's worth of fossil yielding 3.2 gallons worth of biodiesel, and hey, farm equipment runs on diesel, so 0 gallons of fossil yields 2.2 gallons of bio.  Better, but still not great.   Algae has the potential to make biodiesel great.  Nothing is gonna help ethanol due to the insane energy costs of distillation.

Hold your breath.  Don't let it out, until you think of an even more basic necessity than food and water.

Get involved in actually feeding the hungry of the world... you'll find out it's a LOT harder than it sounds. There's plenty of food, but distributing it is a problem.  Go watch "Black Hawk Down", the first part at the U.N. camp.  Even when there's peace, if you give away food, you undercut the struggling local farmers and put them bankrupt.  It's a "give a man a fish" vs "teach a man to fish" problem.

Bottom line there's PLENTY of food.  The government is paying farmers to grow corn now, instead of to grow nothing. The corn would have fed chickens.  The soy would have made frying oil.  So who you're REALLY starving is KFC and Chicken McNuggets.   Which are really, really bad for you.  

Corn and soy are bad for you too.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594200...

http://www.utne.com/issues/2007_142/feat...

Answer 2

Yahoo is a prime example of just how uneducated most people are about alternative fuels and the environment.

Ethanol is NOT a good alternative fuel.  It takes 40% more energy to produce then it is capable of releasing.

Education is key and too many people are ignorant of the facts when it comes to the environment and doing anything to help it.

Mr. Gore is a hypocrite and anyone that listens to him with respect to saving the environment need only look as his ACTIONS!

Get educated!

Answer 3

Ethanol is a good fuel source, it's made from corn, any farmer knows that seed corn he bus will produce only once. We can buy seeds that can be reseeded year after year, it's usually not used for food. If we produce corn just for fuel and continue to produce food, then why not.

Someone on myspace needs to do research

Answer 4

He's got a point... already the price of corn has caused beef chicken and egg prices to go up here and, worse, corn flour in Mexico.... enough so that poor people have trouble affording it anymore....

Answer 5

its very good my 2004 chevy truck runs off ethanol. my truck has more power, it gets better gas milage,runns smoother and is a lot cheaper and bette for the enviroment

Answer 6

Takes too much energy to make it into (inefficient) fuel.  ~

Answer 7

How can a substance be good or bad? It's what you do with it that counts. It costs more than gasoline to produce. Won't take you as far as gasoline and is only being used as a fuel because of huge subsidies paid to producers. If it was economically efficient the market would have done it already.

Another tool of leftists to have government control what you do but on the good side it also helps to s***w over OPEC.

Answer 8

Ethanol, in my opinion, is not a good alternative fuel, not because of food shortage, but because it is as polluting, if not more, than petroleum.

Answer 9

Don't believe any dumbass environmentalists who say it is good because of environmental reasons. It is carbon-neutral, so it does shut up people who yell "GLOBAL WARMING!!!", but ethanol puts out ozone when it is burnt. Ozone is good up in the stratosphere, because it protects us from UV rays. But ground level ozone causes cancer and upper respiratory problems. It also lowers our dependence on foreign oil.

But what do I know, I'm 13.

Answer 10

No  and yes

Ethanol made from food crops is bad.

Ethanol made from grass cutting, corn stocks, rice husk or other materials is good.

Burning ethanol in a engine is bad.

Using ethanol in a Direct Ethanol Fuel Cell very good

http://www.benwiens.com/energy4.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/direct-etha...

Drinking Ethanol very very good.

Answer 11

yes ethanol is good because the world needs alternative fuels to help with the problem with global warming.  if we do not change from fossil fuels, that is a BIG problem.  its a start

Answer 12

There are many myths about ethanol.

Here are some quick facts:

Burning ethanol in a gasoline engine is not that great.

Burning ethanol in an engine designed for ethanol is superior to gasoline.  Drag racers are alcohol burners, and have been for many years.  Starting this year, and from now on, all Indy cars will burn only ethanol.  A same size Indy car engine on ethanol provides 30 more HP from ethanol, when properly tuned.

From "cradle to grave" it takes 3 gallons of fossil fuel ( gasoline equivalent ) to make 5 gallons of ethanol.  If I give you $500 tomorrow, will you loan me $300 today?

Ethanol is a form of solar power for your car.  The sun provided the energy to grow the crops to make ethanol.  Any sugar or starch will do, it need not be corn.  Corn is just plentiful and easy to use right now.

Ethanol distilleries DO NOT USE FOOD GRADE CORN!

Ethanol distilleries most often use damaged, dirty, contaminated, moldy, bug infested, burnt, or otherwise "not fit for humans" corn.

Ethanol distilleries only take the sugar out of the corn.  For every 100 pounds of corn that goes into a distillery, 70 pounds comes back out and is used for livestock feed, and even dog food.  All the protiens, fats, oils, and fiber comes out the back end of a distillery.  This food is sold to farmers and ranchers and pet food companies at DEEP DISCOUNTS.  Ethanol distilleries need to get rid of millions of pounds of corn by-products, so they practically give the stuff away, just to keep it from piling up by the truckload.

Ethanol producers LOWER the cost of beef in particular, by providing a cheep, healthy, calorie-dense cattle feed, that is easier for the cattle to digest than whole kernal corn.

NONE of the corn used in ethanol production could ever be used for tortillas or make it directly to your plate.  MOST of the corn used in ethanol production is used to feed beef cattle.

Today, 6 pounds of corn is used up to make 1 gallon of ethanol.  And in a properly built car, 1 gallon of ethanol can drive 5 or 6 people 40 miles.  6 pounds of corn for 40 miles of driving?  Sounds like a wise choice to me.  And a bargain. And technology gets better every year.  Soon we will move on to other stock besides corn.  But ethanol will be a very good thing for the planet for many years to come.  Ethanol is non-toxic to humans and wild-life.  You can actually drink ethanol.  Ethanol is in beer and wine.  Try drinking even a small amount of gasoline and you will be poisioned!

Burning ethanol does not put ANY carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, since the act of growing corn takes more carbon out of the air, than burning ethanol puts back in.  Ethanol productions reduces green-house gasses and global warming in a BIG way.

It's not just about saving gasoline and reducing imports.

It's also about saving the planet.

And what you burn this year will grow back next year.

I'd be happy to answer any other specific questions.

Answer 13

Yes it is a good alternative

No because it takes a lot of energy to create

If we could find a way to reduce the amount of energy used to create ethanol, it would be an excellent alternative.

So in all yes it is a good alternative.

Answer 14

Ethanol no good, a study was recently done showing that in a time span of 30 years, ethanol would be much worse for environment becuase of all the energy it needs to make it and various other factors.

The only "good" fuel is Electric or Hydrogen

Answer 15

Ethanol is not good because:

- It takes a lot of fuel to produce it

- It needs a lot of fields to produce it, thus reducing hte fields used for food

- They need to use a lot of pesticides and things like that, so they don't even know what the consequences will be for the environment (the soil).

(there may be other reasons)

For DDT: I don't see why you are accusing the leftists since the people who are making plenty of money out of it are big businesses, not the people in general.

Answer 16

Ethanol is not the answer to our problems we need to find something else!!