Corn Based Ethanol: Yes Please
Ethanol, which makes up about 10% of the fuel in most people's cars (the other 90% is gasoline) is currently on the rise. In fact, Detroit automobile manufacturers are already making cars--millions of them--that will run on Ethanol-heavy fuel (85% ethanol and 15% gasoline) due to political nods to and subsidies for alternative fuel methods. And farmers in the Midwest are sending billions of bushels of corn to refineries that turn it into billions of gallons of fuel as we sit here typing and reading. The bad news? Apparently, ethanol production--that is, the work, resources, and energy involved in the process of planting the corn to getting fuel into your automobile--is extremely inefficient compared to gasoline production. While tailpipes that run on ethanol emit much less smog than their gasoliney counterparts, some argue that it takes nearly as much energy to produce ethanol from corn than the energy that you get out of it. The good news (and why I'm praying that corn-based ethanol goes full steam ahead)? As I see it, we will, almost definitely, start calling gas tanks "cornholes". And that's a world I want to live in. So yes, please, to corn-based ethanol.
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on 3/11/07 at 4:26 PM.
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