Why Havent We Started Converting Things To Ethanol?

Question

I thought ethanol was supposed to be the easy, affordable asnwer to our fuel crisis since its made from corn.

So whats the deal with that?

when are we going to start converting to ethanol?

ever?

Answer 1

Well, lets be honest...no one ever said Ethanol was the "easy, affordable answer".  Its just another answer.

Distilling alcohol is actually a more expensive, water/energy intensive process than refining crude oil.  But since the price of crude is spiking, alcohol distilling is finally economically viable as a fuel source.

There is another caveat of E85 being cheaper...its not taxed like gasoline (yet).  Depending on your state,  $0.30-$0.60 of each gallon of gasoline is state and federal taxes.  The price spread of E85 here is about $0.80, so if E85 is taxed like gasoline, the price difference is negligible.

Oh one more example of taxation...

1 Gallon of E85 -- $3.19

1/5 gallon of Everclear (195 proof ethanol) -- $15.00

Answer 2

One problem is the inefficiency of using corn to produce it when at best it gives you 25% more energy than you use to make it, usually it's close to break-even. And it's very stupid to turn from farming food to farming fuel as we've found out. If we produced it from switchgrass on marginal land that the USDA pays farmers not to use, it returns 540% as much energy as you use to produce it. For algae ethanol, you can get 6,000 gallons of fuel per acre, compared to 370 gallons for corn, and you needn't use farmland at all.

But there are other problems, to run more than about 15% ethanol in a car you need to convert it since the energy density is a lot less than gasoline and you need to pump a lot more thru to the engine to get the same amount of bang. In temps below 52F or 11C you need a cold-starting system. And the emissions may be a big problem. Less CO2 and no particulate air pollution but a lot more ozone which means a lot more smog, with resulting health risks.

The biggest roadblock is the government which is catering to the corn lobby and it will be difficult to get them to use more efficient means to produce the ethanol and fund research to overcome the problems I listed.

Answer 3

Many fuel companies are against this because they would lose money if everything goes to ethnol.The number of companies concerned about the environment are less than a handful. Ethnol is cheaper which means lesser profits per unit.

Answer 4

To fuel all motor cars in the world or a large amount, you would need massive amounts of ethanol, and seeing as ethanol comes from food crops, we will see food shortages and/or high prices on food. So would you rather using your car for transport, when you can use other alternatives like walking, riding a bike etc.? Or would you rather be paying through the nose for food, an item we cannot live without?

Answer 5

the simple answer is that there is not enough corn on the planet to fuel every gasoline vehicle with ethanol. it would take more resources than are available, ignoring the fact that people need to eat.

the complex one is that it will happen relatively soon if oil companies do not buy a new technology that uses micro organisms to make ethanol, they do it at something like 50000 times the efficiency and can use waste products like old tires and such, this could lead us to independency from oil. also, in these times money is getting tight, this means that your average d**k and Jane can't afford to make any changes to their vehicles, especially considering the lack of availability of ethanol gas, however eventually ethanol technology could take a hold as the new methods for creating it come about.