Ethanol fuel ??

Question

Why is this product not the TOTAL SOLUTION??

Answer 1

less gas mileage.  If you have driven by an ethanol plant, the smell is aw full.  To convert to 100% ethanol, the amount of land required for corn growing would cripple our agriculture and make food price increase quickly.

Answer 2

Because with current methods, we us corn normally used for food. It also still emits carbon into the atmosphere (carbon positive), although less than gasoline. THe current method only gains a little energy from the process, meaning that we get our 125% of what we put in, as opposed to a ratio of 800% with gasoline. Ethanol is better than gasoline in terms of its impact on the environment, but without dramatic improvement to the method, it is highly innefficient.

Answer 3

it will be known as the total DESTRUCTION

because this is causing more deforestation and exstinction than anything we have seen ever before ,

They are gonna pass a bill in congress which will result in wholesale  destruction of indigenous forrest and the death of millions of species of plants and animals ,And it will be Americas fault.

Forrests are being replaced for monoculture planting which means no animals exept plagues of insects ,which they will combat with chemicals

also killing the soil as well as all fauna

The irony here is that the growing eagerness to slow climate change by using biofuels and planting millions of trees for carbon credits has resulted in new major causes of deforestation, say activists. And that is making climate change worse because deforestation puts far more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than the entire world's fleet of cars, trucks, planes, trains and ships combined.

"Biofuels are rapidly becoming the main cause of deforestation in countries like Indonesia, Malaysia and Brazil," said Simone Lovera, managing coordinator of the Global Forest Coalition, an environmental NGO based in Asunción, Paraguay. "We call it 'deforestation diesel'," Lovera told IPS.

Oil from African palm trees is considered to be one of the best and cheapest sources of biodiesel and energy companies are investing billions into acquiring or developing oil-palm plantations in developing countries. Vast tracts of forest in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and many other countries have been cleared to grow oil palms. Oil palm has become the world's number one fruit crop, well ahead of bananas.

Biodiesel offers many environmental benefits over diesel from petroleum, including reductions in air pollutants, but the enormous global thirst means millions more hectares could be converted into monocultures of oil palm. Getting accurate numbers on how much forest is being lost is very difficult.

The FAO's State of the World's Forests 2007 released last week reports that globally, net forest loss is 20,000 hectares per day -- equivalent to an area twice the size of Paris. However, that number includes plantation forests, which masks the actual extent of tropical deforestation, about 40,000 hectares (ha) per day, says Matti Palo, a forest economics expert who is affiliated with the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE) in Costa Rica.

"The half a million ha per year deforestation of Mexico is covered by the increase of forests in the U.S., for example," Palo told IPS.

National governments provide all the statistics, and countries like Canada do not produce anything reliable, he said. Canada has claimed no net change in its forests for 15 years despite being the largest producer of pulp and paper. "Canada has a moral responsibility to tell the rest of the world what kind of changes have taken place there," he said.

Plantation forests are nothing like natural or native forests. More akin to a field of maize, plantation forests are hostile environments to nearly every animal, bird and even insects. Such forests have been shown to have a negative impact on the water cycle because non-native, fast-growing trees use high volumes of water. Pesticides are also commonly used to suppress competing growth from other plants and to prevent disease outbreaks, also impacting water quality.

Plantation forests also offer very few employment opportunities, resulting in a net loss of jobs. "Plantation forests are a tremendous disaster for biodiversity and local people," Lovera said. Even if farmland or savanna are only used for oil palm or other plantations, it often forces the local people off the land and into nearby forests, including national parks, which they clear to grow crops, pasture animals and collect firewood. That has been the pattern with pulp and timber plantation forests in much of the world, says Lovera.

Ethanol is other major biofuel, which is made from maize, sugar cane or other crops. As prices for biofuels climb, more land is cleared to grow the crops. U.S. farmers are switching from soy to maize to meet the ethanol demand. That is having a knock on effect of pushing up soy prices, which is driving the conversion of the Amazon rainforest into soy, she says. Meanwhile rich countries are starting to plant trees to offset their emissions of carbon dioxide, called carbon sequestration. Most of this planting is taking place in the South in the form of plantations, which are just the latest threat to existing forests. "Europe's carbon credit market could be disastrous," Lovera said.

The multi-billion-euro European carbon market does not permit the use of reforestation projects for carbon credits. But there has been a tremendous surge in private companies offering such credits for tree planting projects. Very little of this money goes to small land holders, she says. Plantation forests also contain much less carbon, notes Palo, citing a recent study that showed carbon content of plantation forests in some Asian tropical countries was only 45 percent of that in the respective natural forests. Nor has the world community been able to properly account for the value of the enormous volumes of carbon stored in existing forests.

One recent estimate found that the northern Boreal forest provided 250 billion dollars a year in ecosystem services such as absorbing carbon emissions from the atmosphere and cleaning water. The good news is that deforestation, even in remote areas, is easily stopped. All it takes is access to some low-cost satellite imagery and governments that actually want to slow or halt deforestation. Costa Rica has nearly eliminated deforestation by making it illegal to convert forest into farmland, says Lovera.

Paraguay enacted similar laws in 2004, and then regularly checked satellite images of its forests, sending forestry officials and police to enforce the law where it was being violated. "Deforestation has been reduced by 85 percent in less than two years in the eastern part of the country," Lovera noted. The other part of the solution is to give control over forests to the local people. This community or model forest concept has proved to be sustainable in many parts of the world. India recently passed a bill returning the bulk of its forests back to local communities for management, she said.

However, economic interests pushing deforestation in countries like Brazil and Indonesia are so powerful, there may eventually be little natural forest left. "Governments are beginning to realize that their natural forests have enormous value left standing," Lovera said. "A moratorium or ban on deforestation is the only way to stop this."

This story is part of a series of features on sustainable development by IPS and IFEJ - International Federation of Environmental Journalists.

© 2007 IPS - Inter Press Service



Source: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/...

Answer 4

Economics. Corn would go so high that farmers would have to get more for beef, pork, and chicken and everything else would go up that we might long for $3/gallon gasoline. I'm not saying that ethanol should not be used at all, but 'total' is not possible without economic collapse. Other sources such as electric, hydrogen, and natural gas should be used. We need conservation, and we need to revive the cost of getting oil from shale, exploration of drilling, and working with countries like Russia and Mexico who have tremendous oil reserves.

Answer 5

Because it mixes so well with water it gets into the water supply

Answer 6

There's a buttload of reasons. Here's a few:

1. It takes a LOT of corn to make ethanol. America would have to be a coast-to-coast cornfield to produce enough to make a dent in foreign import oil.

2. Since it takes so much corn, there would be very little left to use as food.

3. It takes a lot of energy to produce ethanol, starting with growing the corn, then refining it. The end result is expensive and inefficient to manufacture.

Corn is not the only plant that can be used, but whatever plant it is would need to be grown in huge quantities.

4. Corn won't grow everywhere, so ethanol would have to be distributed by truck or rail, both of which consume energy.

5. Most cars can't handle anything more than 15 percent ethanol, unless they are flex fuel vehicles, which can use 85 percent.

There is no total solution, since ethanol can only be used to replace or augment gasoline. Biodiesel is an option for diesel-powered vehicles, but not everyone drives a diesel, and the U.S. is very anti-diesel. Electric is another viable alternative, but automakers have little interest in it. Europe has some kick-azz diesel cars, one even won Lemans, but the U.S. won't allow them here. Frankly, ethanol is a feel-good product that has no real-world value in the U.S.

Answer 7

It's less efficient than gasoline by 20-30%. If you get 26 miles to the gallon with gasoline, you'll only get 18-21 miles to the gallon with ethanol. That means that ethanol has to be 20-30% cheaper than gas to break even. Aslo, there are not enough ethanol refineries to replace gas. Another point to note is that ethanol is primarily made from corn. When ethanol production goes up so do corn prices. This affects all corn products including animal feed which causes the prices of meat, milk, and dairy products to go up.

There is a silver lining in all this. Many of the gas refineries in this country are getting old and needing to be rebuilt. It would just as easy to replace them with ethanol refineries. Lots of research is being done into producing ethanol from sources other than corn.

Ethanol fuel is not perfect but it is improving by the day.

Answer 8

It's not the total solution because it does still give off green house gases, but I believe it is the best immediate solution that can be implemented the easiest in the US because there are already tons of cars on US highways that can run on it and a good distribution network is finally being established countrywide.

And if cellulosic ethanol becomes reality it will make it all that much more tenable because it won't so heavily affect food prices but will still allow farmers to make good money.

Answer 9

It takes more energy to make and your vehicle does not get as good a gas mileage as gasoline.

Answer 10

It is taxed twice, once at the pump and the other through government subsidies given to farmers, it is about 1/3 as efficient as petrol and it is driving up the costs of ALL food, since many foods use corn as ingredients and farmers use corn to feed their livestock.

Answer 11

It ruins marine engines has no  positive benefits. Other that producers gets goverment grants to build the factories.

Answer 12

It is the most environmentally destructive energy source.  

First you must clear a forest or grassland (wildlife be damned).  Then plow it.  Fertilize it.  Spray it with herbicides.  Spray it with insecticides.  Divert water to irrigate it.  Harvest it and process it.  If you want to see what's left of our natural landscape turned into row crops then you must be an ethanol advocate.