Is E85 really that great? There are some concerns that people are rising that make it look like the corn farmers (in the red states) are trying to get this pushed forward. But, is this really the best idea? I know that Brazil has a bunch of E85 cars, but the amount of corn that it would take and the conversion of our cars would take up a lot of land and money.
Making ethanol, they claim, will help America achieve the elusive goal of "energy security" while helping farmers, reducing oil imports, and stimulating the American economy. But will ethanol significantly reduce our oil imports? Will adding more ethanol to our gas tanks lead to further price hikes at the pump? And will it take more energy to produce a gallon of ethanol than it actually contains?
I can understand why the Republicans like it, it means more money for big business. The Democrats like it because the farmer gets a pay raise from the price of corn going up. Plus both parties like it because it will reduce foreign countries influence over us.
Here is something I found on-line:
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The two scientists calculated all the fuel inputs for ethanol production—from the diesel fuel for the tractor planting the corn, to the fertilizer put in the field, to the energy needed at the processing plant—and found that ethanol is a net energy-loser. According to their calculations, ethanol contains about 76,000 BTUs per gallon, but producing that ethanol from corn takes about 98,000 BTUs. For comparison, a gallon of gasoline contains about 116,000 BTUs per gallon. But making that gallon of gas—from drilling the well, to transportation, through refining—requires around 22,000 BTUs. They determined that making ethanol from switch grass requires 50 percent more fossil energy than the ethanol yields, wood biomass 57 percent more, and sunflowers 118 percent more. The best yield comes from soybeans, but they, too, are a net loser, requiring 27 percent more fossil energy than the biodiesel fuel produced.
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Michael Wang, a scientist at the Energy Dept.-funded Argonne National Laboratory for Transportation Research, says "The energy used for each unit of ethanol produced has been reduced by about half [since 1980]." Now, Wang says, the delivery of 1 million British thermal units (BTUs) of ethanol uses 0.74 million BTUs of fossil fuels. (That does not include the solar energy -- the sun shining -- used in growing corn.) By contrast, he finds that the delivery of 1 million BTUs of gasoline requires 1.23 million BTU of fossil fuels.
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I do think something needs to be done, but getting the car makers, filling stations(if they are needed), consumers (don't want to buy girly cars), and the government to switch from gasoline will take the perfect idea it seems like.
On a side note, I'm sure I will see a ton of advertisements for ethanol at the Indy 500 this year. The Indy cars run on it now, so people will see that it can power cars at high speeds.