Ethanol: not so clean after all
Today’s International Herald-Tribune reports on a study by a Stanford professor that found that an increase in ethanol use would actually make our air dirtier. Specifically, he projects that if we switched completely to ethanol by 2020, there would be 200 more smog-related deaths each year.
Ethanol does produce fewer green house gases than gasoline, and it is a renewable fuel source. But as Mark Jacobsen, the author of the study, says, “”If you want to use ethanol, fine, but don’t do it based on health grounds. It’s no better than gasoline, apparently slightly worse.”
2 Responses to “Ethanol: not so clean after all”
Leave a Reply
All comments offered in the spirit of civil conversation are welcome! Commercial spam, obscenity and other rude behavior are not, and will be removed. Valid email addresses are required. (RAN respects your privacy; we will not use, lend, or sell your email address for any reason.)
April 26th, 2007 at 8:07 am
Recently in my biology class we did an experiment to test alternate fuels to fossil fules. The main alternate fuel was ethanol. We came to the conclusion that ethanol was a much more effective fuel to use, yet now i think to myself there are also those disadvantages. Think about just how many sugar plantations would be needed to supply the world with sufficient amounts of ethanol for the world to have enough fuel? Surely there must be other fuels that culd be used. I just dont understand why we have unlimited sun, wind and tidal and do nt make the mst of it.
May 7th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
Ethanol is a Stepping Stone which is helping create a path from what we use today to what we want / need to use in the future. If the problem of global warming did not exist, oil is running out quickly so we must find something else.
Conventional Wisdom / Paradigms: Ethanol greatest benefit is the destruction of the myth that we can only use oil/gas to meet our energy needs. It could have been used all along but the oil lobby was more powerful and got the backing (read subsidies) of the and other governments around the 1930’s.
The Ethanol debate is complex and the big picture is easily lost. Special interests for and against ethanol confuse the issue in order to promote their best interest. A republican neighbor said that ethanol is being subsidized by the government and he opposed that. I said the oil industry is still getting billions in subsidies and at a time of record profits. He said two wrongs don’t make a right. Another common argument created by the oil industry is that it takes more than one gallon of gas to make a gallon of ethanol. If that is true why have poor rural farmers used ethanol in their farm equipment for years – are they really that stupid? Ordinary people are easily confused by misleading arguments that sound valid until challenged.
The big picture: all cars derive their energy from the sun . Oil – decayed plants + heat time + pressure. Natural gas – same as oil but cleaner. Ethanol – same as oil except the sun’s energy is extracted much sooner after the plant dies. Like oil it has toxic byproducts but the benefit of reduced CO2 emissions. 10% ethanol blend works in almost all cars with no modification.
Ethanol Efficiency: I’ve read that sugar cane is 2x as efficient as corn but corn Ethanol has strong support from the powerful corporate farm lobby. Oil – takes energy to pump up out of the ground and refine and transport. Republicans attack ethanol while never questioning how much oil energy it takes to refine gasoline. They act like it just comes straight from the ground into the gas pump.
The future: Switching from oil to renewable electric. Solar and wind can meet all our electric needs check out: BP Solar (British petroleum), GE Power Systems – largest wind turbine maker in the US.
Electric cars for transportation. Keeps the auto industry and consumers happy and uses existing roads and infrastructure. Electric cars require almost not maintenance – rent “who killed the electric car”. Gasoline engines are only around ~ 25% efficient, the other 75% of each gallon of gas makes heat. Electric cars are a stepping stone (hybrid) and final solution all electric pwr supplied by battery (plug-in).