Why is ethanol not a good alternative to gasoline?

Question

Why is ethanol not a good alternative to gasoline?

Answer 1

Here's a couple of sites you can read on this subject. I recently read an article that stated a gas released from burning Ethanol was actually worse for global warming than the emissions for the autos. Over 400 times worse.

Would have liked to link you to that last one but can't find it right now.

The only true alternative is electricity or hydrogen. We do not have the technology to produce enough hydrogen for the cars on the road today.

Answer 2

because, it's opposite day?

Answer 3

You would be contributing to global warming as a result of using ethanol rather than gasoline.   Heres an article that talks about it.

There's no way around it: Your car is contributing to global warming. In fact, it's almost certainly the single most environmentally harmful component of your lifestyle. The transportation sector is responsible for nearly 40 percent of nationwide greenhouse gas emissions, not to mention plenty of ozone-damaging and smog-forming pollutants. The good news is that new clean-car technologies are emerging at a rapid pace – not just behind the scenes, but in the showrooms of car dealerships near you. Efficient hybrid-engine cars like the Toyota Prius and the Ford Escape SUV can't keep up with demand. Meanwhile General Motors and Ford are ramping up their development of flexible-fuel vehicles that can burn both standard gasoline and biofuels such as ethanol. So if you're in the market for a climate-saving, planet-positive vehicle, which should you choose -- better mileage or biofuel?

Answer 4

It burns faster than gas, so you have to use more of it.  It takes a lot of oil to make ethanol.

Answer 5

it costs way too much.

Answer 6

read this about ethanol production

Only transient Aliens could have aproved that.

They are intending to replace most of the indigenous Forrest's in the world ,with mono cultures for the production of Ethanol,

Non sustainable, chemically grown ,heavily irrigated (with water needed for communities)one specie Forrest's,that have only plagues of insects as fauna which are controlled with pesticides.

Killing all bio diversity,in both flora and fauna ,adding to the destruction and extinction of species ,like nothing we have ever seen before.

All in the quest for alternative energy and to save the Environment ,

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

Answer 7

it is a good alternative

Answer 8

One hundred words is not a lot to work with, and its a tough question because this is a hot political question, and so there are a lot of dubious claims circulating out there.  Here's a high level, short scientific answer, using non-controversial data...

Ethanol is not a good alternative to gasoline, because the entire US corn crop, if converted to ethanol, would replace less than 17% of US gasoline consumption.  

The US presently consumes 141 billion gallons per year of gasoline.  Gasoline contains 1.5 times as much energy per gallon as ethanol, and so 212 billion gallons of ethanol would be required to replace all US gasoline consumption..  

The entire US corn crop is 93 million acres.  Assuming 100% conversion to ethanol, the entire US corn crop equals 35 billion gallons of ethanol.  This is less than 17% of current US gasoline consumption.  Thus, it is impossible for corn based ethanol to replace gasoline as a major US liquid fuel.

Answer 9

The answer to your question depends on how you look at ethanol as a fuel.  On the side of it being a renewable resource, it is a good alternative.  Derived from farm crops, ethanol will provide farmers with crop opportunities, increase the planted land in the country, and can be renewed easily.  On the negative side, ethanol is still a carbon based fuel and thus is burnt to release its energy.  The burning of the fuel still produces a large amount of green house gases (CO2 and CO).  Also, current technology is not optimized for the use of ethanol in most large systems, such as vehicles.  Consequently, it takes more ethanol than gasoline to get a vehicle from point A to B, thus increasing the potential to pump more greenhouse gases in to the atmosphere.  As research pushes on, this difference will likely be overcome.  As far as fuel alternatives go, an optimal fuel for reducing greenhouse emissions would be one that does not contain any carbon, hence eliminating any CO2 or CO emissions. An example is hydrogen fuel which produces only water as its exhaust product.

Good question!

Answer 10

No, its not a good alternative to gasoline.  I know this for two reasons. 1- From a practical stand-point and (2) the fact that our government (United States) is forcing it down our throats.  The fact our government thinks its a good idea ought to be the first tip-off.

1- We're cannibalizing our food source and converting it to a fuel source.  This is a fundamentally flawed strategy.  Corn is in just about everything.  When you start using it as a fuel, it'll become more scarce and the cost of everything will go up.

2- Its not practical from an energy standpoint. It takes more energy to raise corn, harvest it, process it and transport it and gives you LESS mileage than gas.  Like our government, it isn't very efficient.

3- We can't raise enough corn to meet our fuel demands.  If the government starts subsidizing / encouraging (with our tax dollars) farmers to grow corn instead of other food crops (to keep up w/ the demand for fuel), we'll be depleting our food source more quickly and becoming more reliant on other countries by importing that lost crop.

I got some more, but its past my bedtime. ;-)  We need to keep looking because ethanol isn't the solution.  It creates more problems than it solves!  ~Slacker