![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Ethanol fuel bad?
Feb. 11th, 2008 04:04 pmI know a lot of people are confused about the connection between using ethanol fuels (like E85, a mix of 15% gas and 85% ethanol) and cleaning the air of excess greenhouse gases. It's probably because vehicles that use E85 are, like hybrids, considered "alternative fuel vehicles." You can produce a lot of confusion by clustering different things in the same box. Like 9/11 and Iraq. Not related, yet we went to war because of that kind of confusion.
Ethanol-based fuels are not better for the environment than oil-based fuels. That was never the point of them. The point was to find an alternative to oil-based fuels because we are currently somewhat dependant on foreign oil, and eventually oil is going to run out. It's about availability, not cleaning the air. In fact, according to this article about ethanol, it's actually worse for the environment, maybe by a lot. Why? It takes a lot of processing to turn corn or beets into fuel, and it takes a lot of land to grow the veggies. The processing produces additional greenhouse gases, and the land could be used to grow plants that are great at reducing CO2 load in the air.
Ethanol-based fuels are not better for the environment than oil-based fuels. That was never the point of them. The point was to find an alternative to oil-based fuels because we are currently somewhat dependant on foreign oil, and eventually oil is going to run out. It's about availability, not cleaning the air. In fact, according to this article about ethanol, it's actually worse for the environment, maybe by a lot. Why? It takes a lot of processing to turn corn or beets into fuel, and it takes a lot of land to grow the veggies. The processing produces additional greenhouse gases, and the land could be used to grow plants that are great at reducing CO2 load in the air.
