The Ethanol Myth

Ethanol is a clean-burning (reduces CO2 emissions), renewable, fuel mix made from fermented agricultural products such as corn.It does not even require alteration of your car engine. And since it is not derived from fossil fuel it would reduce greenhouse gas emissions and eventually reduce America's dependence on Middle Eastern gas reserves (hence no warfares) . So ethanol is the choice for tomorrow. However it seems that few important facts are being purposefully missed here in the craze for eaze fuel.

Fact #1 It takes fuel to convert corn to ethanol. An acre of U.S. corn can be processed into about 328 gallons of ethanol. However planting, growing and harvesting so much of corn requires about 140 gallons of fossil fuels and costs $347 per acre (as per Stanford University research) and then there is the energy expense for distallation cycles to make it ready to be mixed with fossil fuel (http://pangea.stanford.edu/ESYS/Energy%20seminars/patzek_ethanol.pdf#search=%22corn%20and%20ethanol%22).

Fact#2 The drive to produce food-based biofuels is anachronistic; even if all US corn and soybeans were used, it would meet only 11 percent of gasoline demand and about 9 percent of diesel demand. So in order to satisfy few million motorists, the grocery bill will go up for all of America. .

Fact#3 Believing that corn is the answer to the great American craving for food and speedier cars and bikes unsurprisingly can spell economic disaster when the food export volumes would go down too. And more and more land would be devoted to corn rather than other crops which eventually might need to be imported resulting in a agricultural trade deficit.

Hope the scientists/industrialists will soon find something so that the choice never boils down to food vs fuel.