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Posted by: | Posted on: June 14, 2016

Bio-Ethanol Godsend or Not?



Bio-Ethanol Godsend or Not?

Responsible people agree that a clean environment is better for mankind. It’s indisputable.

Petroleum is considered a non-renewable resource and can’t be around forever especially if mankind increases its demand for the product.

Also, it is currently controlled in much of the world by some countries that support terror.

Although, it’s use has become considerably cleaner, it is still not the cleanest fuel source and many scientists claim it is responsible for carbon emissions which they claim increase global warming.

This article is not here to argue if it is true or not.

Let’s discuss the pros and cons of using bio-fuels.

Yes, they DO have cons.

I read an article this morning about Nissan developing an affordable bio-ethanol fuel cell that could make bio-fuel cars more accessible to the mass market.

“The technology combines the transformed bio-ethanol with air to power an electric motor. You’re theoretically getting a “carbon-neutral” car with much more range than a pure EV — Nissan is aiming for 497 miles on a tank where even the best Tesla Model S runs out of power at 294 miles. And since you wouldn’t need to store hydrogen, you wouldn’t need either giant tanks inside cars or special fuel stations.”

It sound promising.

Why we should be concerned about using food to burn.

But the article says the bio-ethanol would be produced from corn or sugar cane, both of which are also food crops.

Both of those are currently used to produce bio-ethanol.

However, an increase in demand would mean that a lot of farming area would be transformed from food production to fuel production.

Prices of food would increase.

This Forbes article illustrates 3 reasons why using corn ethanol are a bad idea:

The article explains a lot about how the current practice of using corn ethanol as a fuel additive got started and the problems with it.

  1. There are a lot of politics involved in the industry.
  2. Adding ethanol to gasoline reduces mileage.
  3. As cars become more fuel efficient, it becomes harder to meet the congressional mandates set up a few years ago.

Of course, making a bio-ethanol fuel cell would be different from using ethanol as a gasoline additive.

But the problem remains that the world needs to be fed and burning up food for transportation seems a really bad idea.

How about finding a NON-FOOD resource for ethanol production?

What do you think?

Leave a comment and share.

bio-ethanolAnita Hales

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