Evil new Fuel?

Question

Why is america so obsessed with this new corn based fuel? Most poor americans are to the point they cant buy a gallon of milk. it is sad when this happens. Did car companies think of what would happen if they made this fuel or did they just ignore the fact that everything in the world of food is based from corn?

Answer 1

Ethanol can be made from almost anything that has lots of sugar in it. Corn is just one such product, sugarcane,beets are others.

Idea is people could be making ethanol from lots of different plant raw materials thus not just using corn , farmers get good price too and corn is easy to grow.

Its not evil unless its misused to a point where people start starving due to no food to eat.

Milk may become cheaper and healthier if more biofuels are used.

Answer 2

There's nothing new about it, ethanol has been around longer than gasoline.  Food products are still planted, harvested, and transported using petrolium based fuels, and we are all painfully aware of the cost of gas and diesel fuels.

When production costs go up, so must the cost of the product.

Some of the benefits of ethanol are lower emissions, less imported oil from other nations, keeping our money we spend for fuel in our own country, and creating jobs.

Currently, the cost to produce a gallon of ethanol in this part of the country is around $1.35 per gallon.  By the time it gets to the pump, the oil companies that handle transportation and sales pocket another $1.00 or more per gallon.

It probably isn't going to be the fuel for the long term future, but it is a step in the right direction until better technology becomes affordable.

Answer 3

I believe they think every one has money to burn . Look how much they charge for a car . You can buy a house for what there charging . I'm not sure what planet every one is living on but I'm not going to work the rest of my life just to pay for a new car and gas for it . Maybe ill buy a cow and let it graze all the neighbors lawns

Answer 4

Relax the profits from ethanol are being used to develop plants to produce ethanol and other alcohol fuels from other sources such as cellulose. The number of years left for corn seed based ethanol are small.

Answer 5

People are not thinking. If we put every effort into making corn a major production we could possibly power 15% of the vehicular fleet on the road today. That means turning every acre of land that doesn't have a person standing on it into a corn field.

And we would still have to burn the fuel to power vehicles thereby creating carbon.

Answer 6

The more educated crowd knows that corn ethanol just being hyped up by politicians who need the support/votes of corn farmers out there.

Ethanol, although cleaner burning, is not at all a good alternative fuel; it takes just as much energy (from fossil fuel) to convert corn into ethanol that carries about the same amount of energy. Brazil is successful with their ethanol industry because sugarcane can produce roughly 3 times the amount of ethanol comparing to the same unit weight of corn.

A lot of scientists out there are fighting against corn ethanol. Unfortunately the US is seemingly supporting corn ethanol because of what GWB says and does...

Answer 7

Corn ethanol is supposed to be a beverage, not a fuel. Can you say bourbon? Corn does not yield much alcohol per acre. I am not against ethanol fuel, but we need to make it out of something else. Maybe sugar beets.

Answer 8

Not all of us are obsessed with ethanol.  Farmers like it because it increases demand for their product, which raises prices, meaning they earn more.  If you were a farmer, who would you sell to - a supermarket that pays 70 cents per pound or an ethanol producer who pays one dollar per pound*?  This is simple supply and demand economics.

The car companies haven't been pushing the use of ethanol.  If they were, all vehicles would now be flex fuel or E85 capable.  My 2004 Subaru cannot burn ethanol or E85 - would ruin the engine if I tried - and in many cases dual/multi fuel engines are still a special order option only for fleets.  Even if I wanted to use ethanol, I don't think there are any gas stations selling ethanol in my region, so I'm out of luck either way.

American car companies haven't even been pushing the development or marketing of hybrids, even though Toyota and Honda can't keep them on the lots.  If anything, the big 3 have missed the market demand for hybrids and alternative fuels.  Hence their faltering in market share.

Regarding the cost of a gallon of milk...the cost of milk has as much to do with high oil/energy prices as the price of grain.  Milk has to be pasteurized, transported (usually by truck), packaged, and kept cold.  This takes considerable energy resources.

*I made the prices up as an example.  I do not know current corn futures prices.

Answer 9

Well because corn can be grown almost anywhere, quickly and in copious quantities, and oil seems to take well... to long and is harder to find.