Jensenfan asked: I have found plenty of disads–higher corn and feed prices for animals and consumers, higher gas prices, damage to car engines that aren’t built to run at higher temperatures. The production of ethanol is cost inefficent–it uses more energy to make than it produces, and I imagine (don’t know for sure but it seems likely) that all the extra work to produce it probably causes as much pollution as is saved by having it put in fuel.
Couldn’t there have been a better way?
Caffeinated Content
The ONLY benefit is that it reduces our dependance on oil, which is a non-renewable resource. ( we might use it all up eventually) more importantly, it reduces our dependance on FOREIGN oil. That is more of a political concern than anything else.
The only at least somewhat valid reason for using ethanol in gasoline is to reduce tailpipe pollution. It takes the energy of a gallon of ethanol (85,000 BTU, as opposed to 120,000 BTU for gasoline) to make a gallon of ethanol, so fuels such as E85 do nothing except fatten the wallets of corn growers — at your expense.
Postscript: because of the energy considerations, it does NOTHING to reduce oil use.
Higher prices for farmers
Yeah, plenty of disadvantages…. Too easy to find those! I heard an interesting blurb on NPR (National Public Radio) about the history of ethanol. I am also going to include a link to NPR and a panel talking about advantages and disadvantages. Check out and type Ethanol in the search box, and you’ll find a lot of interesting info about it.
Here’s another link about it
Two advantages to ethanol are that it is cleaner burning that gasoline and it does reduce our dependance on oil. Corn farmers are also thrilled, because the price of corn has increased a lot. To them, that is an advantage, although to me, I cringe. Check out the npr sites, they are so interesting!
Yes but a little is good to remove moisture from your fuel system.