Why not to use alternative fuels?

Question

I have to do some work on alternative fuels and i have to answer the questions: Why we should research and use alternative fuels, and why we shouldn't research and use alternative fuels? Can anyone give me some help?

Answer 1

We should look into alternative fuels so that America can be energy independent, and because the fuels we use now are non-renewable and will run out eventually. Not within our lifetime, but eventually.

We shouldn't research alternative fuels in a tentative manner. If we look into fuels that can be determined to never be a feasible solution then we are wasting time and research money that could have been applied more productively. Things like ethanol and bio-diesel will never be a wide scale alternative because the world does not have enough land to grow enough organic materials to meet even a mentionable percentage of our energy demands, but might be a fun thing for a niche consumer to use.

Answer 2

Why should we:  We have a fair amount of organic waste products and byproducts which are not productively used right now, and we might as well get the most good we can from them.

Why shouldn't we:  many "alternative" fuels are made from food, or grown on land which could otherwise produce food.  Fertilizers used to grow these crops causes emissions of nitrous oxide, a long-lived greenhouse gas.  Production of palm oil for biofuel is causing rainforests to be clearcut.  There are many more bad ways to produce biofuels than good ones.

Answer 3

big oil has blocked or lobbied for years against it.  as for reasons why we need it go to your local gas station.  60 or 70 bucks to fill up what used to be 20 or 30 bucks is ridiculous.  Some families have to choose between gas in the tank or food on the table.  Also sooner or later we are going to run out of oil.  Its inevitable.  Also politics and oil go hand in hand.  Control the worlds oil you control the world.  After we invaded Iraq oil prices went thru the roof.  Cost to produce oil stays the same just the middle east namely OPEC who have a love hate relationship with there biggest consumer The U.S.

Answer 4

In America, businesses are looking for the fastest way to make the biggest buck. The profits tend to be short-term and very short-sighted.

Government needs to step in and enforce taxes on oil. For decades, Europe has more reasonably taxed petrol and raised the cost of gasoline to more accurately reflect the true cost of the fuel.  With a higher price, alternative fuels become economically viable, and that technology has a chance to grow and mature.

In Brazil, they have the best alternative choices of fuels anywhere in the world.

The world desperately needs a carbon tax and government support for renewal energy sources.

Research "peak oil" to learn more about the limited supply of oil and the anticipated rapid increase in prices.

Answer 5

They are too exspencive is the main reason.

Ethanol is only viable in tropical places that can grow sugar cane.  Everywhere else you end up burning oil or gas to grow the crops and distill it.  There is research being done to make it using bacteria and enzymes from less than ideal plants so it might be viable in the future.  Plus most cars in North America would need a lot of parts replaced to make them run on it without falling apart.

Bio-diesel is ok if you can find it.  If it went into large scale production they would start using virgin food crops instead of old deep fryer waste oil.  Burning food that people need to live driving the price up is not a good idea.  There are machine capable of turning just about any organic material into somethingthat could run in a deisel engine, if someone put up the money they could be up and running on a large scale in a few years.

Electric vehicles are really not an better for the enviroment.  They have tons of bateries that are made of toxic materials.  And most of the worlds electricity comes from burning coal.  A modern coal fired power plants might power a electric car cleaner than a gas car but it is not a great alternative.

Hydrogen fuel cell cars are in use in Iceland becasue they have nearly unlimited geothermal power to sperate hydrogen from water.  Therefore it was worth setting up the filling station infostructure.  Everywhere else they need to extract hydrogen with exspencive electricy mostly from coal power plants and there is not really much incentive to set up the infostructure.  The other source of hydrogen is extracting it from fosil fuels and alcohols in the vehicle, fewer emition but still using fosil fuels one way or another.