Why are some people saying that Bio-fuels such as ethanol are bad for the environment?

Question

Why are some people saying that Bio-fuels such as ethanol are bad for the environment?

Answer 1

Most of the answer is concerning cost-effectiveness and reliability.

Answer 2

what do you mean some people

Every one says it is bad

except for the people who want to make money with it

at the cost of the Environment ,the animals ,

the people working at ethanol production,the land needed for food production and   food prices.

Not to mention that the industry produces more carbon emissions than all of the factories and the cars put together on this planet

read second article down,http://byderule.multiply.com/journal/ite...

Answer 3

Because they are made with food that we need to eat. If we use food for fuel in our vehicles what will we eat?

Answer 4

Because it takes tons of gas to drive the farm equipment and produce the bio fuels.  Also bio fuels need a lot of chemical fertilizer that uses petroleum products.  It's like saying let's use cotton for paper, it takes more resources to produce the cotton and get it to market and change over the technology.  If you have to use energy to produce a bio fuel you are impacting the environment.  But we really don't have too many choices right now.

Answer 5

Bio-fuels use the food we eat pushing up the price of food, they burn just as dirty as regular gas, give you less mpg, because you have to fill up twice in the time you would with gas with less power. If at best you can call bio-fuels a stall.

Answer 6

It's because we have to make them through farming. And we cannot farm food and make fuel at the same time. Making fuel would cost a huge amount of land and in turn would be worse for the environment.

Answer 7

It takes 4 -5 gals. of fresh water to make one gal. of ethanol, depleting groundwater. Forces more marginal land into crop production which can lead to soil erosion. Using food for fuel which is driving the poor countries to the brink of starvation and starving people are less likely to care about the environment.

Answer 8

If everyone uses ethanol, then it becomes a problem.  But if only some people are using it, then the issue of it driving up food prices is nominal at best.  Many hundreds of acres of land in the United States belong to farmers who are paid by the federal government to NOT farm it-- in order that crop prices are kept stable, and so that we're not generating a surplus at the expense of taxing arable land.  If we were to cultivate that land to make fuel sources, we would keep food prices low-- but if there were a drought or bad year, then we would see prices rise.  Additionally, cultivating this extra land doesn't solve the problem of emissions from bio-fuel vehicles, and would create a new demand for farm land, encouraging the federal government to consider selling off protected areas like national parks and reserves.  Which would suck.

I've read a lot of negative comments about bio-fuels creating the same amount of emissions as gasoline and diesel.  This is neither a qualified or a quantified statement.  In clarification, biofuels produce about as much CO2- however, they do not produce as much O3 (ground-level ozone), sulfur and sulfur compounds, and CFCs as petroleum fuels.  They are also far easier and cleaner to refine.  And most of all, bio-fuels can be generated in the same country that's using them; saving all the environmental expense of drilling and shipping petroluem.

Also, if a tanker full of veggie oil dumped in the ocean, there wouldn't be a three-year clean-up ordeal afterwards.  Not so, for oil.