Should we replace petrol for biofuel?

Question

I am doing a debate and my team is the affirmative team. We know that biofuel is a better alternative than petrol and that biodiesel can be replaced but only for diesel cars. However we are not sure what alternatives of biofuels are there that dosent require modifying your gasoline car.

Is there anyone out there who would know some alternative biofuel that can replace petrol and still be used in your exsisting gasoline engine?

The debate will be on the 22nd of November so i was just wondering if i could get some answers quick!!

Thanks!!

Answer 1

Ethanol or methanol are bio fuels than regular gasoline cars can use, at least with some minor modifications. Any gasoline car can use up to 10% ethanol, but with small modifications it can be 100%. Flex fuel cars can use gasoline or ethanol. It is quite cheap to make any car a flex fuel car, so it is a shame that very few cars in the U.S. are flex fuel. The reason is probably because the supply of ethanol is too small to make any demand for it. It is a chicken and egg problem. Not enough ethanol means nobody wants flex fuel cars. Not enough flex fuel cars means nobody wants ethanol. But the real bottleneck is the supply of ethanol. It only takes a minor and cheap change to make a car run on ethanol, so mandating by law that all cars be flex fuel would not be a big cost to manufacturers or buyers, but ramping up ethanol production to large enough volumes to supply every car would be a MASSIVE and expensive project.

Answer 2

Hydrogen conversion kits are available, go to www.peswiki.com to find them.

Bio diesel is already available, economical. $1.00/L in 44gallon drums or DYI for $0.22/L.

Plus a company in Australia has a device that can turn a petrol car into  diesel, they just signed with the US military.

they believe it will cost about $1000 to retro fit.

the Website is www.greendieselcorp.com.au

Your engine after the first couple of fills, runs cleaner and needs less oil changes.

Ethanol is not as energy dense as diesel and requires a large amount of distilling to produce, while bio diesel can be a recycled oil from some other use, reducing its embodied production energy.

Answer 3

There's a lot of ethical issues around biofuels (derived from corn, etc) that are worth mentioning. How does it make sense to grow entire crops specifically for the purpose of fueling our fancy western style lifestyles when that same area of land could have been used to grow a crop to feed the millions of starving people on this planet?

Answer 4

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2...

http://www.25x25.org/index.php?option=co...

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/f...

It is going to be a while before biofuel become an economically viable alternative to gasoline. It will happen. Must happen. By then existing engines may be unserviceable. One can just replace the engine alone.

Answer 5

Yes, there is.  It's ethanol.  I have been using ethanol for 2 years in my non-flex fuel 2005 Ford Focus.  I have not made any modifications to the car and it runs perfectly fine on it.  I have had no problems or engine damage using ethanol in my gasoline only car.  Ethanol is a far superior fuel to gasoline for many reasons.

Big oil has created all kinds of lies and myths because they feel threatened by ethanol. Ethanol is not only fine to use in your regular car but it is also way better for our environment and heres why:

Cars running on ethanol, which is distilled from agricultural crops and biomass are governed by the same laws of physics as those using petrol in that both fuels emit CO2 as a consequence of combustion, however the crucial difference is that burning ethanol recycles CO2 because it has already been removed from the atmosphere by photosynthesis during the natural growth of agricultural crops, such as corn plants. A corn plant removes CO2 from the atmosphere and uses it to grow and produce cornstarch. The plant is harvested and the cornstarch is fermented into ethanol. The ethanol is burned and the cycle repeats. NO NEW NET CARBON is added to the atmosphere when you use ethanol, unlike gasoline which spews tons of carbon into the atmosphere which has been trapped beneath the earth's surface for millions of years in the form of crude oil. You can burn all the ethanol you want and you are not contributing one iota to global warming. You are simply recycling carbon. And creating demand for ethanol by using it in your car stimulates farmers to plant more corn to meet the demand. More corn means more CO2 is removed from the atmosphere because corn, like all plants, takes in CO2 and gives off oxygen via photosynthesis. So not only are you not adding any new carbon to the air when you use ethanol, you are stimulating the planting of more corn plants which naturally fight global warming via photosynthesis.

In addition, using ethanol means no more devastating oil spills in the ocean which destroy all kinds of marine life and birds. And ethanol is now being produced via "green" means with ZERO fossil fuels used in the process. Read that again---ZERO FOSSIL FUELS ARE BEING USED TO MAKE ETHANOL. Ethanol plants are using wind energy and biomass exclusively for power because it saves them a heap on their natural gas bill.



If it took more energy to make than ethanol yielded every ethanol plant in the country would go out of business because ethanol sells for cheaper than fossil fuels on a unit-by-unit basis. At some ethanol plants the net energy yield is essentially infinite as wind and biomass are used to produce it.

And why do people think that gasoline and diesel require no energy to produce? Gasoline doesn't come out of the ground. Crude oil does. That crude oil has to be shipped on a massive oil tanker 5000 miles from saudi arabia to the gulf of mexico. Then the crude oil has to be refined into usable gasoline. Both steps require massive amounts of fossil fuels.

Brazil has been using ethanol made from sugarcane for 25 years and not a single person has starved yet as a result. Believe it or not, people CAN and DO actually eat other things than just 100% corn all the time.

Haven't met a human yet who eats all corn all the time. Let's stop being brainwashed by big oil lies and start THINKING rationally for a change.

And most ethanol plants are located literally right next to the farming areas where corn is grown. In fact, 90% are farmer-owned co-ops. 5 miles is a much shorter distance than halfway around the world.

Hopefully this helps you.  Best of luck.