What is the plus and downside of ethanol cars?

Question

What is good about using ethanol filled cars and the bad things

Answer 1

Currently, ethanol is not as efficiant to produce as oil, however it is still cleaner. It does use corn that could be used to feed cattle, but a signifigant portion of the kernal can be reclaimed as high protein cattle feed. FFVs do get less mpgs on ethanol, but newer FFVs are getting almost the same mileage on ethanol. When E85 was first put into major use, their was alot of subsidies, however today, there is no more subsidies are given to ethanol production than other companies like Amtrak or oil companies. Even though ethanol does not seem like the best alternative, technological advances in the near future (like more efficiant cellulosic digestion) promise to make it leaps and bounds better than oil. Invest in the future today.

Answer 2

The UN says that the ethanol boom is reducing the amount of corn that could otherwise be used to feed impoverished regions.

Answer 3

I think it is silly that we burn our food when so many poeple go without.  All in the name of being green.

Answer 4

There really is not much that is bad or a downside of ethanol.

No, it has little effect on food supply and food prices.  If you live in an agricultural region, you know this.  One bushel of corn yields about 2.8 gallons of ethanol.  So even if your tank holds 25 gallons you are using up less than 10 bushels of corn.  That is not enough to feed anyone for a year!  And by the way that corn was not going to feed people directly anyway, it was almost entirely used for animal feed.  Plus the ethanol process does not use up the corn.  The left over corn is still used to feed livestock.  Plus there are other byproducts.  One ethanol plant in Nebraska has some of its byproducts used in a nearby plant for production of medicine.  There are several other useful byproducts.

One of the biggest pluses is it is renewable.  You can grow more fuel stock each year.

Answer 5

there is nothing good about ethanol.

1 TANK OF ETHANOL WASTES ENOUGH FOOD TO FEED A STARVING PERSON FOR A YEAR!! ONE TANK!!!

2 IT ALSO PRODUCES MORE WASTE THAN REGULAR GAS!

American grocery stores are starting to introduce food rationing. Wal Mart is restricting the amount of rice customers can buy. In Mexico and Yemen, in Egypt and Indonesia, the poor are taking to the streets to protest massive rise in food prices as well as shortages. A short distance from our shores, the troubled nation of Haiti is in crisis again; Haitians, dependent on U.S. grain imports, have seen those dry up and have been reduced to eating cakes of dirt.

How did this come about? Because on top of rises in energy prices and some changes in the diets of developing world countries, we are burning a large portion of the world's food crop in our cars’ fuel tanks, in the name of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and curing our "addiction to oil."

We see it with DDT, which they banned to save birds but which has led to the deaths of millions in Africa.

We see it with the Endangered Species Act, which has led to a practice known as "shoot, shovel and shut up" as landowners kill critters listed as endangered to keep the Feds from taking control of their land.

We see it every summer with wildfires, as we strive to deal with decades’ worth of overgrowth following environmentalists' legal victories over the loggers who used to thin out the forests and keep them healthy.

We are seeing it now with growing hunger as a result of biofuels policy.

AND TO MAKE THOSE ECO FRIENDLY HYBRID CARS CAUSES MORE WASTE THAN OTHER NORMAL CARS!

ps global warming isn't real!!!!

Here are some facts:

1) If you took every car off every road in the US the temperature would change less than a TENTH OF A DEGREE!

2) People cause 3.5% of temperature change with .4% coming from cars.

3) The polar bear population has gone from 5000 to 25000 in 10 years and for some reason, they are still being put on the threatened list! they can swim!

4) 5 billion dollars a year is wated by the US government to research "climate change"

5) no one has proved why the hole in the ozone layer appeared, so the theory that the extreme cold caused it is just as credible as the theory thet cfcs or whatever caused it.

6) Al Gore shows his audience a slide of CO2 concentrations, and a slide of historical temperatures. But for very good reason he does not combine them in one overlaid slide: Historically, atmospheric CO2, as often as not, increases after warming. This is typical in the campaign of claiming “consensus” to avoid debate (consensus about what being left unspoken or distorted).

less than 20 years ago they were freaking out about the next ice age!!!!

what more wil it take to convince you? why believe what politicians and liberal "scientists" say when you can just look at the science and prove it wrong!?

and just because I am a republican and dont believe in global warming does not mean i am pro litter/ pollution. it means i am pro common sense!

Answer 6

On the plus side, it's cheaper than gas, renewable, and its CO2 emissions don't count because its feedstock just pulled it out of the air last year.

On the minus side, you can't get it everywhere yet, people are focusing on corn instead of the cellular ethanol process, and people think it's taking food out of the mouths of the poor, although that's just propaganda.

Answer 7

pro's for ethanol;

it is a renewable fuel source

anything that can be used to make alcohol can be used to make fuel grade alcohol

it does help stretch our oil supplies

if you know how to tune your car, you can make better power with alcohol as you can take advantage of the higher octane rating.

ethanol can use the same basic infrastructure as gasoline

con's for ethanol;

you need nearly twice as much ethanol to make the same power as gasoline

ethanol has the same emissions output as gasoline, it just cant be read by the sensors designed for gasoline emissions

you need to modify your fuel system slightly to use alcohol as it will damage some fuel system components.

understand that ethanol is not the be all, end all for our energy needs. it will take a number of different sources of fuel to do that.

Answer 8

What makes the price look so good is the subsidies that go into it.  It reduces miles per gallon as well. Less crops are planted for human consumption. Investors such as GM, politicians and others are getting rich.  IF we are going to subsidizing something, it should be diesel. Diesel is way to high and is causing our goods to go up.  Ethanol is all political. Probably would $8 a gallon if it were not subsidized.

Answer 9

Bad     First: You get worse milage per gal. so it is costing you more to run your car.  Second: It pollutes the air. Third: It is wasting farmland which is needed to grow food for humans and livestock

Good:  Makes politicians feel like they accomplished something.

Answer 10

the upside is we can reduce our dependence on imported oil.your other answers are from people that continue to be uneducated about biofuels and our ability to produce food and fuel. no we can't supply all our energy needs with ethanol but we can supply some. many college and govt, studies already show that ethanol has become cheaper than gasoline and has reduced the price of gas from 28 to 40 cents per gallon in the midwest. the price of food has gone up mainly because the price of energy has increased dramatically which has increased the transportation cost. if there was no more oil then what will you put in your car. the argument that we can't take food to make fuel, says who? we are farmers and are  making biodiesel out of used cooking oil and soybean oil. one day we will have no choice but to use biofuels because all the oil will be gone .  corn yields have continued to climb over the years and will continue to do so to meet the challenge of producing food and fuel for our citizens. most of the dollars and jobs will stay in this country instead of like many other industries that have either moved to mexico or gone out of business. contrary to people who have no concept about how production agriculture works ,corn production DOES NOT DESTROY THE ENVIRONMENT. SOME PEOPLE SEEM TO THINK IT IS TERRIBLE TO GROW CORN FOR FUEL AND USE FERTILIZERS AND FOSSIL FUELS TO DO IT BUT IT IS OK IF YOU GROW CORN TO PUT IN THEIR STOMACH.

Answer 11

well they will waste gas making the corn to make ethanol, but the long term affects look good