Ethanol.... Sounds good, but does it take more energy to produce? It doesn't burn as efficient as gasoline

Question

Anybody can help me with answers?

Answer 1

Depends on whose numbers you use and what the price of oil is today. If you do a straight energy balance on it, it works, but it's not as economical as some would have you believe. It's attractive today beacause it's the system farthest along, there are tax breaks to producers, and it's politically correct.

It really burns as efficiently as gas. The difference is there is just not as much energy available in a gallon of ethanol as there is in a gallon of gas. Comparisons of cost of a gallon of ethanol to a gallon of gas are (probably intentionally) misleading. As a rough rule of thumb, you need 1.2 gallons of ethanol to match a gallon of gas.

One unassailable point in its favor is that it is truly renewable. The oil supply is finite and decreasing. Plants continue to grow. As a major industry, ethanol is in its infancy. I am confident that there will be major advances in botany to lead to crops that yield more ethanol and also manufacturing advances to increase yield and lower cost.

The net is that it's just OK now, but in the future, after its production costs have dropped and oil prices have gone even higher, it will be a viable, sustained source of energy.

Answer 2

Ethanol needs to be developed better. The ethanol for E-85 being found at gas stations in the US is made from corn, which is great as it is a renewable natural resource, however, more efficient ethanol could be produced if they used native grasses and switchgrasses for the ethanol production. Ethanol also gets less gas mileage and it also isn't as efficient. Ethanol is very important to be developed however now it is relatively new to be used for a vast amount of vehicles and technology needs to be developed.

Answer 3

Ethanol produces about 4/5 the engergy of the same volume of gasoline, but has less polution. The problem with ethanol is that it has the underlying costs of planting, spraying and harvesting the corn, all of which are going to involve using energy, probably gasoline or diesle fuel. In the long run you don't save anything, money or resources.

Answer 4

I'm sorry I didn't save the URL for this, but in the last few months Yahoo! news had a story in which it was reported that to fuel an average car over an average number of miles driven in a year, it would take no less than 16 acres of farmland. Multiply that by the number of cars on the road today and you must surely end up with a huge amount of land which is not currently devoted to food production. I think that ethanol is just a stop gap solution to wean us from imported oil and help us at least come to a stopping point in increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Answer 5

It makes 0 distinction which one produces more beneficial CO2 what does count number inspite of the actuality that is the actual undeniable actuality that ethanol is made from flora that had take up contemporary CO2 from the ambience so there is not any information superhighway benefit in CO2 in the ambience. the real issue to save in options right here that ethanol in the U. S. is produced with as a lot as 60% gas from crude oil from the fertilizers used to strengthen it the combines powered by ability of it to reap the grain and the autos that shipping it to the processing plant. The processing plant itself runs off the grid so it consumes coal to make ethanol. no longer very environmentally pleasant once you're taking each thing in to account. in spite of the undeniable fact that that's a scam that works nicely for the politicians

Answer 6

it is a fact that ethanol isn't as efficient as gasoline, but the net effect on the environment is still better than gasoline. The real problem is when the demand for ethanol for gasoline makes buying the essential food items harder and more expensive which is why this form of alternative fuel is likely a gateway fuel to something better.

Answer 7

I heard on the business news today that Coca Cola is already looking for a replacement for corn sugar because the price of it is going up so quickly due to ethanol production.

Answer 8

Ethanol is efficient, and as techniques improve in its production it will become increasingly efficient and replace some of our gas consumption.

Yes it CAN take more energy to make than it provides in its use, but with improvements in technology, corn varieties and industrial techniques, Corn can produce as much as 500 gallons of ethanol per acre, and accounting for energy needed for production and energy per gallon conversion that would be nearly equal to 200 net gallons of gasoline per acre. A person driving an hybrid with 50mpg could get by on the production of only two acres of corn.

Yes it does not have as much energy per gallon as gas but that is of little concern, if implemented on a wide scale the only problem would be a need for slightly larger gas tanks.

Compared to other alternative energy sources such as wind and solar that cant make it on their own either without subsidies with current technology corn based ethanol does not do poorly.

Ethanol from corn could account for as much as 10% of our gasoline fuel needs by 2015, and potentially another 20-40% of our fuel needs could be met from ethanol from other sources especially cellulose if our country chooses to make the investment.

Currently it is about equal to current gas prices, but to justify switching production and building the production factories to convert corn to ethanol, such prices would have to be sustained for some time. That is being done, but the time it takes to plan a new factory is several years, and 5-6 years ago the efficiency of the process did not yet make economic sense.

With other concerns with using oil (limited supply, often hostile sources and global warming) ethanol is the most viable replacement we currently can apply to the need. It is far more likely to be a bigger part of the the solution to global warming than solar, wind or nuclear power at least for the next 50 years.

The biggest problem with the technology is political. Many liberals refuse to admit it may be a part of the solution to global warming because some conservatives suggest it may be one, and no doubt it will benifit some of the red states that grow corn.

Most autos could with minor modifications be made to run on 85% ethanol. The main changes are the fuel lines need to be changed to be made of plastics that last longer with ethanol fuel and changeing the amount of air/fuel per engine cycle.

An additional aspect of the corn based ethanol is that the residue from ethanol corn production is high quality protein that is good for animal feed for cattle or chickens adding another high value product to the process. This means that as it is implemented in the next few years we can meet 10% of our fuel need without substantial subsidies from the government in a way that does not add to greenhouse gasses. This can mostly be done with recent improvements in yeilds to the existing land used for corn production. What could be wrong with that?

Answer 9

Ethanol production consumes one of our most pecious rescources, i.e., arable land. Without subsidies it is not really economically feasible at today's oil prices.

Answer 10

Yeah, everyone in government and big business is going to be cashing in on it, so now it's the next "Big Thing"