how much pollution is caused by producing ethanol? is it still better than gasoline? if so, by how much?

Question

i've been looking up alternitive fuels, ethanol is the most available, but i heard that it puts polution into the air to produce it, is this true?

Answer 1

The best way to analyze this is to look at the net energy production from making ethanol.

If you make ethanol from corn the net energy production is 1.2X, which is to say that you make about 20% more energy than you consume to make it. All ethanol made today is made using machines powered by gasoline. Ethanol produces virtually no pollution as compared to gasoline that means that that ethanol produced today reduces pollution by (1 - 1/1.2)*100% or that it reduces pollution about 17%. Note that corn based ethanol is the only product available today so today the pollution reduction of ethanol is about 17%.

If you make the ethanol from cellulose then the energy production is about 8X or 8 times more energy than it took to make the ethanol. This is the technology that will be used in the future to make ethanol. Using the same assumptions as for corn based ethanol the pollution reduction is (1 - 1/8)*100%, which is a reduction of 87%

Note that if you only use ethanol in the machines used to make ethanol the pollution reduction is nearly 100% in both cases.

Answer 2

Eventually, ethanol powered tractors will help remedy that problem.

Answer 3

properly i believe you purely as they suggested plastic bags ought to keep the earth. Now the most important toxins we've is plastic bags in each and every water way killing fish and different animals. So even as will they renowned that they do no longer understand the solutions.