Is ethanol good or bad as a fuel source? Why do you think so? What do you know about ethanol as a fuel source? Although the gas with ethanol is cheaper than regular gas, your miles per gallon is not as good as with regular gas. Knowing this, would you still fill your car up with ethanol gas? Do you believe that there will be enough corn to produce ethanol for the fuel of cars? Would you be in favor of researchers looking for other crops in order to produce ethanol? Do you think there is anything bad that could come from using ethanol as a primary source of fuel in the United States?
For more information, please take a few minutes to visit some of these web sites before you answer:
http://www.eere.energy.gov/afdc/altfuel/ethanol.html
http://journeytoforever.org/ethanol.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel
http://www.ethanol.org/
http://www.ethanol.org/whatisethanol.html
thanks for your input-- Phillip Poppe (12:00)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
9 comments:
Is ethanol the way to go? I am for the production of ethanol as an alternative fuel source. When gas is nearing $3 a gallon I am sure that anyone will be glad to have a cheaper and cleaner burning type of fuel. I believe that ethanol is the new wave of the future when it comes to fuel sources. Plus with this fuel source vehicles still look good. The vehicles that run on hydrogen or electricity look like they are from outer-space. However, there are a few things that need to be figured out more about the production of ethanol. One of these is the consumption of water. Ethanol plants use a lot of water and the scare, at least here in Champaign, is that there won't be enough water to go around plus the whole water-polution factor. The thing is that water isnt polluted in the process of ethanol production. In fact it is almost cleaner coming out than it is going in. I think the shortage of water wont be an issue anyways. The Mahomet acquifer is the largest water resevoir in the world. The by-product of ethanol can be used as a source of feed for livestock. The only thing I question about ethanol is the usage of corn and corn available. I think they are planning on construction too many ethanol plants here in central Illinois. We as farmers dont produce enough corn to meet the demands of ethanol plants right now. A few will be fine but not as many as are planned. Other than that I am all for the production of ethanol and I think that it has great potential.
Josh Kaufman
I believe ethanol could be a good thing if we found a way to find a better way to burn the material then coal. Even if ethanol burns cleaner than normal fuel we are coming out even when we biuld the ethanol plants, for they use coal as the source of energy. Ethanol could be a good thing because it is cleaner, if we find a new fuel to burn in the factories. The product itself loses lot of energy in the process of becoming a useable fuel so it is not the greatest thing in the world. We deffenently could find a different alternative fuel source that is better and more reliable than ethanol.
Jarrod Winder
I think ethonal is a good idea. Most gas in the U.S. is blended with 10% ethonal adding 2 points to the octane rating. Octane is the resistance to detonation and preignition. Detonation is the uneven burning of fuel mixture after the spark and pre ignition is high combustion chamber pressure causing the fuel to ignite before the spark occurs.
The 10% ethonal has been added to keep up with the federal laws on emissions putting more oxygen into the fuel so it will burn cleaner and put off less carbon monixide.
There is all ready factories refining gas and if they slowly switch over we wont have extra factories poloting but we will have less polution from the billions of vehicles on our roads today. Our country use to be huge with farming but as industy grows the farms go away. On top of cleaner air overall, many jobs will open up for our farmers and overall seems better for our economy. more corn feilds mean more plants growing to give us natural fresh air. Cleaner burning cars and more plant life seem to out weigh the opening of a few more factories to make it happen. Also saves some wear and tear on your car from detonation and preignition. So I think ethonal is a good thing overall and another step in fixing our environment.
Dustin Claypool
i think that ethonal is a good idea for a bad situation. ethonal is made from corn i think and corn is a renewable source unlike oil. i belive that the gas crisis is only next to the iraq war in how bad it is. the gas prices have gotten so bag i just stoped driving all together and picked up my bike. over all ethonal good cars bad
Isaac Mitchell
i think that using ethanol is a great idea. What i know about ethanol is that it is a fuel made from corn.And i know that regular gas is cheaper but who cares by useing ethanol we can use somthing that we have tons of instead of using somthing that we must buy form the middle east.And i would much rather put that in my car.i would hope that their is enough of ethanol go arould. i would be in favor of resarchers looking for other plants to use that way we would most likey not run out of platns to use.And i really don't know of anything bad about useing ethanol but i'm sure that thier are bad since eventhing has a bad side.
Laynie Shields
I do not think that ethanol is a good fuel source. First of all I cannot see it lasting very long. Sure there is a lot of corn around the world, but one day the soil will be so used up that it will not produce anymore crops. I believe that there is other resources out there that we need to look at for a fuel source. we need to find something that will last no matter what happens.
cody sullivan
Ethanol is a step in the right direction. Although this is not by any means a new form of fuel. I think that Brazil or one of those countries in south america are almost completely dependent on enthanol as a fuel source (95%). In the seventies, this side of the world ran into a major fossil fuels shortage. That is when Brazil began their research in using the abundant plant sugarcane to produce ehtanol. They have been at it for nearing fourty years and they are almost completely independent of fossil fuels from the Middle East. We also had this oppertunity but our political leaders decided to not move forward with ethanol as a fuel because of the kickbacks they were and are still getting from the oil industry.
Ethanol is an organic substance that can be created by the frementation of certain sugars using specific enzymes to break down the long carbon chains into ethanol. Ethanol and other organic fuels are carbon neutral which means that when they are burned, they release the same amount of carbon into the atmosphere that the plant contained so it is not adding to our atmospheric supply of carbon like fossil fuels.
Ethanol is quite a bit less efficent in its use as a fuel compared to fossil fuels, and it isn't too much cheaper to produce. What is important is that we are now trying to get off of our dependence of fossil fuels. This is going to cost us in the crop industry. We will have to decide whether or not it is more important ot feed the country or create biofuels. Because of this, we are going to have to find the most efficient ways of producing crops along with creating a very high yeild per acre. (If you are looking for a good job oppertunity, ag. engineering is going to explode because of this!)
The creation of new biofuels is vital for the survival of this country. I think that it is a good thing even if it is a bit less efficient. I think that with all of the minds that we have in this country, we will be able to come up with a solution to biofuels and our independence on fossil fuels.
Ryan Bales
I think its a good fuel source but also bad. Good because its cleaner, and can replace some fossil fuel use. Bad because more forest land has to be farmed in order to get enough plants harvested to make ethanol.
Nolberto
I dont know about ethanol but it sounds like it could be better than gas seeing that it would polute the air less. However, i think you would probably use up more money on ethanol than gas because it doesn't last as long and peolpe today depend on a ride to get them to their everyday duties.
Oshawa Wardlow
Post a Comment