.jpg)
Did you know.....
Of the nation's 168,987 gas stations, only 608 offer ethanol pumps for flexible-fuel vehicles.
E85-capable flexible-fuel vehicles that run on either gasoline or an ethanol mix have been available since the mid-1990's.
Automakers have already produced about 5 million flexible-fuel vehicles in the United States.
Because there are so few E85 pumps, not many vehicles actually run on the home-grown fuel, mostly made of corn.
One bushel of corn produces 2.8 gallons of ethanol.
Brazil is expected to wean itself from oil imports this year.
Brazil has been burning ethanol made from sugar cane since the first oil crisis of the 1970's.
Of Brazil's 16.5 million vehicles, more than 4.3 million run on ethanol.
About 75% of all vehicles sold there in 2006 will be fuel-flexible vehicles.
Professor Sophie wonders if ethanol is about to swell in popularity within the United States.
*-you can find this and much more information about ethanol in March 17, 2006 article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution section S pages 1 and 2.
2 comments:
The problem with ethanol...
Let me first say that I am all for finding good alternative fuel sources. I don't like paying $2.50 a gallon any more than the next guy. But when you look at the economics of ethanol, you will see why it hasn't taken off. Think about this, if there were a more efficient (cheaper) way to fuel a car, then we would be doing it. The invisible hand would have long ago capped the oil wells if it could have.
On a per gallon basis, gasoline is much cheaper to produce. Many proponents of Ethanol will give the stat Sophie mentioned (1 bushel of corn = 2.8 gallons of ethanol. At about $2.50 per bushel, that is a raw material cost of 89 cents per gallon. Gasoline by comparison costs about 69 cents per gallon in raw materials. Once you add in the energy required to convert the corn to ethanol you get a cost to produce of around $2.24 per gallon. The reason ethanol is cheaper in some areas are because of the subsidies the government (or rather, the taxpayer) provides in the form of tax exemption or payments to ethanol producers to help offset their energy costs.
It takes 1 unit of energy (in whatever electrical form, usually oil products) to produce 1.64 units of ethanol energy (measured in BTUs). Gasoline on the other hand produces almost 5 units of energy per 1 unit spent. Therefore, if we went to an ethanol based fuel system, it would cost almost 3 times as much to produce the same amount of energy. While we would have gasoline free cars, we would actually be burning MORE fossil fuels in the production plants than we do right now with straight gasoline.
well, what do you expect, she is a dog. I just thought it was cool that she could read the newspaper and type. Who knows what other information lurks in the mind of my trusty canine companion...I suppose time will tell. Thanks for responding dudimus. I was beginnin ta think weren't noone who cared about lil ol me and my thoughts.
Post a Comment