Is ethonol fuel good to replace the fuel we use today?

Question

Is ethonol fuel good to replace the fuel we use today?

Answer 1

No.

Answer 2

I like SVO/biodiesel better.  

Ethanol has some issues.  One is the extremely high energy cost of distilling (boiling) - you can burn 2/3 gallon of fuel to make a gallon!  Not very efficient.  It's a bad sign when the ethanol industry is asking the power industry to build more COAL FIRED generating plants to power their ethanol distilleries.  Almost defeats the purpose!

Another is that the cheap, low-grade corn that's used to make ethanol is ordinarily used for animal feeds.  I'm writing from poultry country, and they've seen feed prices go up 50% or more. This could make for more expensive Chicken McNuggets, and in the end, Americans eating less meat.

Ethanol is still a win, just not much of a win.  

Biodiesel is much better because the energy cost of turning it into usable fuel is much, much lower.  The raw feedstock (straight vegetable oil) can be run directly in a modified diesel engine, and large diesels (railroads etc.) could be easily converted.

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

Answer 3

I think we need to explore all possibility as I think the Arabs will use the oil as a weapon.

Answer 4

No.

Consider first and foremost that it's primary base--corn--is our food supply.  That jump in corn usage will raise the price of corn for corn farmers, and it'll pad their pockets, but what about the cow farmers, chicken farmers, etc?  They'll have to pay the increased prices for corn in order to compete with the oil companies, and in the real world when you need to pay bills, you're going to go with whoever is offering you the most money...we'll never see the day that a farmer can outbid the oil industry.

Prices for beef, milk, chicken, cheese, eggs and everything else that relies on corn (not just in the farming sense) will increase (you can witness this happening in Brazil right now, where the minimum rating is E25, as opposed to E10 up here).  So, the economic impact is one thing, but more importantly...ITS OUR FOOD SUPPLY.  They haven't come to any conclusive evidence that after it's manufactured and then used as a fuel that ethanol is better than gasoline.

NOW...in the future, there is room for improvement.  As a matter of fact, I just read something that was released recently in one of the auto magazines, where superchargers and turbos will be able to supply the boost necessary to burn ethanol completely and efficiently...essentially, it'll fool the engine into thinking that it's burning 150 Octane fuel instead of 87, 91 or 93.  This will also leave us room to downsize engines without sacrificing the power that Americans (and "car guys" in general) want to see in their cars.  It'll actually become cleaner, more efficient and CHEAPER than the turbo-diesels that are out there today.

Answer 5

YES! it burns cleaner,therefore better for environment.

Answer 6

At THIS time it is more costly to produce ethanol.PLain and simple. That does not mean that we should not strive to make it's production more reasonable, like in Brasil

Because I'm tellin ya'll before long we are goiing to be OUT OF OIL..(in or around 100 years). If you don't believe me look up Hubbardspeak.com

Dr. Marion King Hubbard was practically laughed out of his profession when, in 1955 predicted that the USA would hit PEAK OIL (hubbards peak) production in or around 1970...Well the rest is history.... IT HAPPENED. And with the increasing economies in China and India and their peoples"need " to be more like the USA (me included)The demand will only ibncrease. To add further to this ,oil explorers, have NOT found a major oil deposit since 1969-1970. M.K. Hubbard has predicted that we will soon(present time) hit peak oil production world wide.  

To conclude Oil futures(cost) will also keep rising because of the hostile enviornments where the oil deposits are, africa and the middle east. And if things were so promising why in the h**l would President Bush be talking about the tar /oil sand in canada .When extracting the oil from there is extremely difficult, very time consuming and costly.hmmmmm?

Answer 7

Most people believe that is is. However if you understand the laws of thermodynamics and the energy principle you will see that it is a flawed energy source.

Answer 8

Contrary to Billy!, yes.

BUT it depends on what the ethanol is made from.

Ethanol is made from different substances. The one they advertise is made from corn. This one is poor. Very poor.

There is ethanol that is made from sugar canes. This one produces roughly 8x as much power as the corn alternative.

Watch An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore. There is a section in there about alternative fuels.

Answer 9

No.

The energy and chemicals used to grow corn actually take almost as much energy.

See link for some good math on this.

Answer 10

No, but its a step in the right direction.

Need to get away from inefficient internal combustion engines.  Fuel cell are much more efficient.

And if ethanol is produced from switch grass you bypass some of the problems of corn based ethanol.

For the rising prices,  60% of the crops  (corn, wheat, rice and cotton) in arkansas are plowed up to earn federal subsidies.  Get rid of those and you will see some of the supply demand problems go away.

Answer 11

We should replace all cars with electric and go with wind power for electricity.

Also, buy a diesel and convert it to run on corn oil.  Get free corn oil from McDonald's and strain it and put it in.  You'll need two tanks, one for diesel and one for corn oil, but once the corn is heated, you can run the car on it.  Also, you are using waste to power your car.