Is ethanol the next big disaster in renewable energy? Studies show it has marginal net affect?

Question

...ethanol may not be the magic bullet to curbing global warming nor America's fuel costs. Given the intense use of fertilizers, water, & other resources to convert corn into ethanol, is congress pushing ethanol bills to please their own states? The sharp rise in corn has everything to do with the cost of food as well from pasta to milk.

Shouldn't we lobby congress to invest in solar & wind like the Europeans?

Answer 1

your question #1
Is ethanol the next big disaster in renewable energy?
If we look only at corn,I agree with your logic, I see some major problems, one we can not grow enough to met our energy needs, and also what happens in a bad crop year? However, there appears some major promise in gasohol. I content --that like oil we can not drill our way out of the energy crisis, we also can not grow our way out of the energy crisis.
In the short time we are going to have to have a combination of sources for energy. Nuclear, wind, solar, ethanol, coal, hydroelectric(from oceans and rivers--is more reliable than wind or solar).
Shouldn't we lobby congress to invest in solar & wind like the Europeans?
Putting all our efforts in a few areas like solar and wind, limits
our chances of developing more efficent green energy sources. Also solar and wind energy requires some form of back-up source for when the wind or sun is not present for days or weeks.
I must also point out the Europeans are very very heavy into nuclear energy.
Keep up the good work in logic, you may help solve the problem. I unfortunily will not be around to see the changes.

Answer 2

Money is already being invested in solar and wind.
Unfortunately development is slow, and solar energy panels are very inefficient right now.
Ethanol works fine for small and midsized cars and portable tools. The largest problem is that everyone looks at energy and fuel as if it is suppose to be a goldmine. The ethanol produced, is only releasing the same Co2 that was remediated by the plants that were used to make it.
As far as the green house gases produced from fertilizers, there are people, right now, researching on methods to utilize microbes to remediate them from the environment as they are being produced.
What would be a better idea is to write and tell them to fund this research, because even if ethanol isn't being used, it is just a matter of time until population requires the same amount of consumption.
Along with that, hydrogen fuel cells seem to work very well. unfortunately we haven't discovered a microorganism capable of turning enough units of substrate into enough units of hydrogen to keep up with supply.
Once one is found, or genetically modified to do so, Hydrogen will be our next fuel and energy source, but population will still require the higher food production that demands use of fertilizers, so the ability to remediate the green house gases as they are produced is still a "must-do".

I see ethanol becoming the fuel used for small engines such as go-karts, chainsaws, and other portable power tools, while hydrogen supplemented with nuclear, solar and wind power nearly everything else.


as far as a comment made above about ethanol being made from corn, it is actually the most efficient when viewed from a stock holders point of view, because it is faster, requires less processing, less time, and less labor. This is what happens when you think private sector is the only way to do things.
Free market capitalism works in many ways, but when you hit bumps in the road, no one wants to make the necessary sacrifices required to make thing smooth traveling, so it takes just that much longer to find a suitable, profitable alternative.

Answer 3

First off, no one has claimed that ethanol is the magic bullet. It's a start. Corn is not the only thing that ethanol is made from. It's also made from grain sorghum, sugar beets, sugar cane, switch grass, cellulose. The more we learn from producing ethanol from corn, the more things we find we can make ethanol from. The ag industry is experimenting with new varieties of grain sorghum that can produce up to 2000 gals of ethanol per acre of sorghum produced using the entire plant (cellulose) corn produces 500 gals of ethanol per acre of corn produced. As for the sharp rise in corn having everything to do with the cost of food as well.." it was the speculators in the grain futures that drove the price of corn up (BTW the price has stabalized and has been falling for the last month. Do you remember what you paid for groceries last year? How 'bout 5 years ago? 5 years ago the price of corn was the same as it was in the 1930's ($1.50-$1.70 per bushel) Did your cost of groceries go down to 1930's levels? NO. My point is, the cost of corn on the futures market has very little to do with cost of food.
By all means lobby congress to invest in wind and solar, the ag sector is all for it. But don't condemn the ag industry/farmers for trying to do something to help get the country more energy independent.

Answer 4

It's gotta be a multi-tiered solution. There are SOOO many resources that relying on only one would be shortsighted and stupid. There should be incentives and research into solar, wind, wave energy, bio-fuels and probably many that I'm missing. Even within those, there are subgroups. Ethanol from corn is probably not the most efficient. How about form switchgrass or hemp? How about the refuse that can't be used form paper and lumber mills?

Ethanol definitely isn't the solution... But it could be a signifigant part of the solution.

Answer 5

Indeed, ethanol has a net negative effect on energy independence when everything required for its manufacture is taken into account. Also, once manufactured, the use of ethanol actually DECREASES a vehicle's fuel mileage slightly!
Meanwhile, of course we should be investing in solar, wind and for the short term, diesel engines! My '03 Jetta diesel station wagon has gone 146,000 miles at an average of 48 mpg and can run on truly renewable and non polluting biodiesel as well as regular refined diesel fuel. Consider how much less oil the U.S. would need if all cars suddenly doubled their mpg in this manner!

Answer 6

This study understates the potential of alternative energy. Just considering the potential of wind power in the contiguous U.S., there is enough potential in the good wind areas to meet an additional 150 % in electric power used based on current usage. In addition to that there is the technology of solar power, which is becoming increasingly efficient. Besides that there is geothermal power which utilizes the heat from the Earth to generate electric power, usually by heating water, to produce steam to turn turbines and generators to create electricity. All the foregoing technologies are greenhouse gas free, and the potential for power generation, far exceeds any foreseeable needs in the near future.

Answer 7

There are better sources for ethanol than corn such as switch grass that will not affect our food supply. We should invest in that as well as solar and wind. Every energy source we can develop to economically reduce our dependence of oil would be worth that investment..

Answer 8

Ethanol is the biggest scam since oil, before 1909 nearly half of the automobiles were electric or hybrid, until the oil barons conspired with carmakers to eliminate the electrics to increase their market share. Using food for fuel in a world with millions of starving people is just another catastrophe, in the continuing saga of man's inhumanity to man.

Answer 9

ethanol is highly inefficient and the only reason it gets subsidies is because it is "farmers" who produce the corn. We need to look at serious alternatives rather than trying to fool people. In the meantime we should drill for oil here in the US and build a new refinery or two to help get us through

Answer 10

If we switch to ethanol fuel I'm so gonna get drunk at the gas station.