Doing a debate on Ethanol as a viable alternative fuel source, and I’m opposing the idea, but I need to come up with some questions to attack some of the Ethanol-supporters. Any help? Thanks!
Originally posted 2009-08-01 20:03:26.
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Ethanol fuel debate help?
Doing a debate on Ethanol as a viable alternative fuel source, and I’m opposing the idea, but I need to come up with some questions to attack some of the Ethanol-supporters. Any help? Thanks!
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Ethanol comes from sugar cane and corn. Any form of a fuel source that comes from a food means that there will be competition for that scarce resource. It will make actual food more expensive, because now there is less of it. There has been a big increase in the price of corn because of ethanol recently – and this is no good. If they want to create a clean and viable fuel source that won’t affect any other market negatively, the way to go is Algae Fuel.
What’s the point of making a gallon’s worth of ethanol, when it takes 0.8 gallons worth of petroleum to grow the corn and distill the ethanol?
Besides, ethanol is made of starch, which is always food. Oil biofuels make more sense because they can come from sawgrass and algae and other things which a) we would not eat, and b) can grow on land food can’t. And because they take far, far less energy to convert.
When the ethanol producers are paying the power companies to build new COAL fired generating plants to run their ethanol distilleries, you know something ain’t right.
The real reason for ethanol in this country is the farm lobby and “Big Ag”. Monsanto, ADM, the USDA, etc. The corn farmers wanted a market. Why else would the Bush administration, which is so anti-environment on just about everything else, get all excited about ethanol?
Here is an actual debate:
There is a slew of sources to fuel (Sorry, punintended) your resistance.
Ethanol from food crops is a bad idea.
Ethanol from cellulose material such as
grasses & woods are a good idea.
Well Ethanol/gas (E85) is 15% less efficient than gasoline alone. That means you will travel less on a full tank of it. Since you will be filling your tank more on the “watered down” gas you will be burning more of it. Would you rather have less emissions but burn the lower percentage for twice as long or have more emissions and burn it half as long. Its quality vs. quantity.
Also, it takes 1,700gallons of water to produce just 1 gallon of ethanol. That’s taking into account the water for the crops to grow and then the water it takes to ferment the plants to produce ethanol. Never mind the pesticides and crop dusters and fertilizers that are produced and used. Haven’t heard of organic ethanol yet.
There is a plant that grows in the South called Kudzu it is like Bamboo in that you burn it one day and grows back the next. They should use that to make it. It then would be a renewable fuel.
The energy source used to produce ethanol is usually coal. no environmental advantage there. Ethanol is less efficient than gasoline- no advantage there.Most ethanol is produced from food crops, leads to shortages and high prices world wide, no advantage there.Why the push on ethanol? Big farm subsidies, lots of lobbyist, stupid or crooked politicians.Don’t you just love it when Gov. helps us out.
Here read these papers, they can be found on the internet. I used them for an essay I wrote. I really like the Patzek and Jacobson papers.