The main issues surrounding the use of ethanol is if the fermentation method is used we would have to use up land that would be used for agricultural purposes. Another issue would be with the synthetic method as it would create a large amount of CO2 which harms the environment.…
Biofuels have become an incendiary issue recently with the environmental, economic and social sustainability impacts bringing more awareness to its development. Influencing factors such as, food vs. fuel, renewable energy regulations, technological advancement and funding, energy security vs. energy price (oil price increase), taxes and tariffs, trade distortion and traceability…
Biofuels are made from the starch or oil portion of plant materials. Some are even made from the fats of animals. In general, ethanol is the fermented starch fuel and biodiesel is the refined oil and fats. Biofuels are important PART of the solution to declining and ever more expensive petroleum supplies. Biofuels can be used together with technologies such as hybrid vehicles and plug-in vehicles. The Chevy Volt is announced to be a plug-in vehicle with a small Flex Fuel Vehicle engine to charge the batteries. Even the new Cadillac Escalade hybrid has been announced as a Flex Fuel Vehicle.…
In fact, in a study, Iowa State University found corn in over 700 non-food products; ranging from toothpaste to biofuel to even explosives. With roughly 40% of corn turned into biofuel, the industry is expected to value at about 185 billion dollars by the year 2021. Although this industry generates an immense amount of wealth, many criticize the multi-billion dollar industry on wasting land for biofuel crops instead of food. Anyone involved in this industry struggles with finding the correct balance between feeding the people and gaining large sums of money because of biofuel. Consequently, the impactful stakes of the industry create controversy with political policies because it involves economic, agricultural, and environmental…
Why do we do this? Because our policy makers have come to believe that the air-born plant food carbon dioxide is a “pollutant” (3) that must be reduced or severe damage will be done to the biosphere. Acting on this belief the US government is planning on turning enough food into fuel by 2022 that could feed half the population of the United States! Even if carbon dioxide were a “pollutant” the use of biofuels produces little or no net reduction in carbon emissions since by some estimates it takes more energy to produce a gallon of ethanol than what one gets back from it when it is burned. "Adding up the energy costs of corn production and its conversion to ethanol, 131,000 BTUs are needed to make 1 gallon of ethanol. One gallon of ethanol has an energy value of only 77,000 BTU." (4)…
In the chapter I learned that ethanol is not as renewable as it seems. It is an alternative to biofuel, and corn can be grown and grown again, but what about all the fossil fuels that are used to produce the ethanol? The only way it could be used as an alternative to nonrenewable resources is if we find a way to produce it without using fossil fuels. In addition it is not as efficient. We would have to use twenty five percent more ethanol to be equal the amount of energy gasoline produces costing the consuming to buy more, and spend more money. I also don’t believe it will make us less dependent on imports from foreign countries. In chapter 2, it notes that we only get three percent of our gasoline usage from the Persian Gulf. Three percent of our gasoline usage would be equivalent to fifty percent of our total farmland. Where would we farm the other ninety-seven percent of our gasoline usage that we get from Mexico and Canada? We would have to import it from Brazil making us dependent on them for our ethanol!…
Throughout the past few decades sources of renewable energy have been widely discussed due to the harmful impacts fossil fuels have on the environment combined with fluctuating petroleum prices and our growing demand for an ever depleting resource (Fletcher et al. 2011). Over the coming decades it is predicted that there will be an increase in the use of bioenergy systems (McBride et al. 2011). Bioenergy is commonly believed by both policy makers and environmentalists to be one of the…
Years ago farmers were encouraged to grow more and were given government grants to do so. “Most of this comes from the Bush administration wanting to have ethanol to replace twelve percent of oil consumption by 2014” (Collapse movie). This would take all of the arable land and therefore this did not work for the simple fact that net energy would not allow it to be a viable fuel source. So now if one where to go to Iowa or Nebraska all they would see for miles and miles are would fields of corn. In 1979 a comity was formed to see just how efficient ethanol really was David Pimentel, professor emeritus of entomology at Cornell University concluded from this study that it would take more energy to produce ethanol than one could get out of it.”Department of Energy invited Pimentel to chair an advisory committee to look at ethanol as a gasoline…
The over use of corn can affect us as well. Fuel has run out, and corn will too. Sure, we can plant the in our many acres of land but that does not change the fact that we are going to be depending on the weather. Livestock and poultry producers fear that there may not be enough corn to produce meat, milk and eggs. And according to Lester Brown, since the United States supplies 70% of world corn exports, corn-importing countries are worried about their supply as well. The is a line between food and energy sectors, and since almost everything we eat can be converted into fuel for automobiles; (including wheat, corn, rice, soybeans and sugarcane) that line is starting to disappear.…
“Keeping America competitive requires affordable energy. And here we have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world. The best way to break this addiction is through technology. Since 2001, we have spent nearly $10 billion to develop cleaner, cheaper, and more reliable alternative energy sources -- and we are on the threshold of incredible advances.” -President George W. Bush, 2006 State of the Union Address. In the past five years we have seen the devastating effects of our dependency on foreign oil. The average price of a crude barrel of oil has steadily increased and nearly tripled from $23 in 2001 to $60 in 2006. To combat this problem our government has come up with two ways to decrease our dependency on foreign oil, and become less subjective to OPEC. The first way is to increase the amount of oil we produce in the United States. Relaxing some of the government restrictions on oil drilling would help promote more production, such as the Bush Administration’s proposal to open some of the Artic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. Unfortunately relaxing government regulations in any industry can be a very slow political process. The other way to reduce our dependency on foreign oil is to find alternative sources of energy. This seems to be a solution that is supported in almost all political realms. In this list of alternative energy sources is Ethanol. Ethanol is a combustible substance that exists in small amounts in about one third of the gasoline sold in the United States. Many domestic vehicles have flex fuel engines that will run on gas that is up to eighty-five percent ethanol. The good thing about ethanol is that it can be refined out of products like corn or sugar. Because ethanol is a legitimate alternative to traditional fossil fuel, support for ethanol producers in the United States is very high. Congress has taken much action in recent years do what they think will…
o Ethanol: biofuel made from plants such as sugarcane, corn and switch-‐ grass. § Convert starch in plant material to simply sugars that are processed into ethanol Advantages of Biofuels (over oil) • Oil is concentrated in small number of countries -‐-‐ biofuels can be grown almost anywhere • If crops not used faster than can be replenished à no net increase in CO2 emissions – [UNLESS existing forests or grasslands are cleared to raise the new crops] • Biofuels are available, easy to store and transport in existing fuel networks (bridge technology)! • Can reduce CO2 emissions by 70% (if forests are not cleared!)…
The world is currently undergoing changes unlike ever recorded before in human history. Record breaking temperatures are occurring more frequently, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are at their highest rates since the Jurassic period, and a rapidly increasing population, fully reliant on our planets natural resources, are beginning to push the earth to its limit. On a local level, these environmental changes are having a significant impact on California’s environment. If this trend continues, California could experience devastating blows to its agriculture industry, a massive source of revenue. Perhaps the most important question to ask ourselves right now is; how can we reduce the impact that we have on California’s environment? So that we may…
This renewable source of energy has acted as an advantage over the past years by providing an alternative to foreign oil. However, this renewable energy resource has also created numerous drawbacks including an extensive amount of environmental damage as well as an inflation in the food market costs (Brush, 2014). This extensive amount of damage has caused the Obama Administration to propose the reduction of ethanol usage. This proposal has caused a sudden outrage by farmers who make a living off of corn-based ethanol (Brush, 2014). Many are concerned that this sudden proposition could be a tremendous drawback in the alternative energy industry. However, with current technological advances the world of ethanol could significantly change and impact in the near future.…
In the pursuit of a cleaner renewable resource to fossil fuels, many scientist have found alternatives. Examples include solar, wind, biogas, geothermal, biomass energy and cellulosic ethanol. In the last twenty years, efforts have been made to reduce our dependency on foreign oil and ethanol has been an option. Ethanol is nothing new; in fact, it was first used in a motor built by Samuel Morey in 1826 (Ethanol History). Since the 1980s, the government started having oil companies add ethanol into gasoline to replace the previous lead additives to cut the carbon footprint it was creating. However, ethanol has brought on several debates regarding whether or not it is affecting our environment and economy negatively.…
The world we live in today is suffering in ways that people before never have. There are constant issues involving environmental hazards, including the alarming rate in which natural resources are being diminished. To help limit the use of one resource, the United States has been turning corn into an ethanol fuel that can be used in vehicles as a gasoline alternative. But this use of corn comes with a set of its own negative effects that extend around the world. The amount of corn based ethanol produced in the United States should be decreased due to its overall negative impact and lack of efficient use.…