Will Ethanol be the fuel of the future ?

Question

How many people in the States use Ethanol at the moment...is it easy to come by. Do you use it ??

Answer 1

Possibly. Actually, if the U.S. govermnent's protectionist tendencies could be reigned in, it would be the fuel of today.

In Brazil, ethanol is made of sugar cane and is economical when oil prices are at $40 a barrel or above. In the U.S., ethanol is made of corn and is economical (meaning, equally expensive to gasoline) at oil prices of $60 a barrel or above. The U.S. government pays subsidies to domestic producers of ethanol (the largest of which, incidentally, is Archer Daniels Midland), while at the same time keeping the Brazilian ethanol out by imposing countervailing tariffs on it.

Answer 2

I'm thinking no on this one, at least not in the distant future, but perhaps the short term. Unfortunately, the process of making ethanol uses tons of fossil fuels. Also, in order to grow corn at the level at which is needed for ethanol, the farmers start spreading fertilizer all over, which pollutes the groundwater, which pollutes the streams, which pollutes the rivers, and so on. I think hydrogen might be the better bet, or perhaps way into the future, solar. Ethanol, for all of its hype, just isn't that environmentally friendly.

Answer 3

Ethanol will help but I truly think hybrid cars are gonna be the way to go and all electric too . Ethanol now is no bargain and alot of cars on the road can not burn it properly . We are gonna need something for sure as the global warming I feel is for real and fossil fuels are getting eaten up too quickly .

Answer 4

Butanol is more likely than Ethanol to replace gasoline. The reason is that it can be ran in any gasoline engine at 100% something that ethanol can't do, and it has 90 to 95 percent of the energy that gasoline has.

Truthfullly what is more likely is these designer bacteria that they are making to produce bio-fuel in the future will likely eventually produce something far better than ethanol or butanol.