How does ethanol fuel affect the evironment?

Question

its for a project.

i need to write a paper of atleast 1500 words.

please help.

give me whatever you nkow.

sites, info, dates whatever.

PLEASE!!!!

Answer 1

Ethanol is a "renewable" fuel, so it has a net neutral affect on carbon dioxide concentration.  However, its effects go beyond being "carbon neutral".

Producing ethanol requires four inputs.  One is supplied by humans; energy for manufacturing.  The other three are supplied from nature; land, water, sun.  In terms of manufacturing energy, ethanol is a big gain.  It takes 1 BTU of energy to produce 6.8 BTUs of ethanol.  In comparison, it takes 1 BTU of energy to produce 0.80 BTUs of gasoline.  So for the same energy input, we can gain 5.8 BTUs of ethanol, or 0.8 BTUs of gasoline.  This is a little misleading though, because that 1 BTU of oil contains the 0.8 BTUs of gasoline.  The energy for ethanol production actually comes from non-ethanol sources, usually fossil fuels.

But, production of ethanol is limited by those three things we need to take from nature.  First, we need the farm land.  This might surprise you, but there is less farm land in use in the US today than there was 50 years ago.  Farm land use peaked in the 1950s at around 380 million acres.  Today, we use about 330 million acres (515,600 sq mi), but we produce a considerably larger amount of food due to more efficient plant varieties and farming techniques.  In about 10 years, we could easily press another 40 million acres back into service, especially with high prices driven by biofuels.

Second is the water.  This posses the largest problem.  Most farms operate with rainfall alone; however, the largest producers  irrigate with ground water, and the water tables have been moving ever lower.  Nearly half of our supply of biofuels is grown on irrigated land.  Now, the aquifers that supply those wells have stabilized in the last decade, but this is probably due to reduced land use.  As more biofuels are grown, we'll probably see these water resources become strained again.  However, more efficient irrigation systems will probably make up the difference.

And of course, there's sun light.  Considering that we'll be replacing plants with plants, there probably won't be any drastic environmental changes.  The only difference might appear during winter time when the additional barren land increases the local temperature.  There's actually a possibility that the extra farmland we will need for biofuels will cause more warming than the carbon dioxide we would have otherwise released.  But all of these effects are essentially small and unnoticeable.

In terms of Global Warming, the effects of ethanol are hard to judge.  This is because it isn't clear how much temperature change there has been, nor is it clear what has caused it.  Most of our climate change is clearly due to oscillations in the Earth's orbit, and fluctuations in solar output, leaving about -0.1 to 0.2 °C unaccounted for.  Yes, the Earth might actually be colder than we think it should be.  A reasonable "back of the napkin" estimate to man-caused global warming would be about 0.1 °C.  In other words, global warming is so small and hard to measure that ethanol won't do jack for it.  

Realize one thing; Al Gore did a "chicken little".  More specifically, the IPCC and various activist groups fabricated cow manure (B.S.) to "draw attention to the problem".  Unfortunately, activists (e.g. Al Gore) have been running around terrorizing people with this BS, even long after it has been exposed as BS.

In the end, ethanol really has more of a human impact than an environmental impact.  However, it is an impact we will eventually need to face.  The oil WILL run out.  Maybe another 50 to 70 years, but it will start getting noticeably more expensive in the next 20 years ($300 a barrel), but probably even sooner if we restrict new domestic production.

I can only give you a brief overview of the various factors.  To learn more visit the websites of the US Department of Energy, Department of Agriculture, and the Geological Survey.  Also, don't completely discount Wikipedia.  Even though its pages might not be accurate (or even correct), they do a generally reasonable job of over viewing the topics, and you can always follow their sources.

Answer 2

It raises food prices because more corn is used for ethanol instead of as food itself, or feed for livestock.

Its funny, they say global warming will cause food shortages, yet it was our own mismanagement and inability to think ahead or understand commodity markets that is causing the food shortages today, right now.

Ethanol also requires machinery to sow, grow, and harvest the corn, or what ever plant material is being used to produced ethanol, and the machinery uses gasoline.  If we use corn, the process usually uses a gallon of gasoline (among other things), to produce a gallon and a half of ethanol, which completely negates the beneficial effects, in the global warming debate.

Answer 3

how much u willin  to pay for food???