Ethanol Fuel – The Boondoggle
There is a big thing going on about the use of ethanol alcohol as a way to reduce the dependence on fossil fuels and reducing emissions and being renewable.
Definitely started up by people who do not know science and did not look into the truth.
There have been two scientific studies on how much fossil fuel is required to produce the ethanol. This ranges from the tractor fuel needed to farm the crop, through production and shipping.
The best one found that it takes .8 gallons of fossil fuel to make 1 gallon of ethanol. The other one that went farther and included sundries like drying heat and the fuel needed to produce the fertilizer required by the crop, came out with 1.2 gallons of oil per gallon of ethanol.
Ethanol also has less energy per gallon, and when used in today’s cars is pitiful.
They have switched to 10% ethanol gasoline here. I have tracked my mileage in my car, (automatically tracks it thankfully). 10% ethanol, 7.5% reduction in mileage. That means that I get the equivalent of .25 gallons for that gallon of ethanol.
Taking the best figure for producing ethanol, (.8), and adjusting for the efficiency you get:
.8 / .25 = 3.2 gallons of fossil fuel is used to produce the equivalent of one gallon of ethanol. That will really reduce our oil dependency won't it?
Philadelphia, PA (Really Bensalem)
When you finally understand it completely... it changes. |