DON'T COUNT ON ETHANOL IN THE FUTURE
BIOFUELS- THE FUTURE OF AMERICA’S ENERGY NEEDS!
Ethanol! Let’s see if we can figure this ethanol out so you may understand why ethanol is not the fuel of the future.
Biofuels, environmentally friendly and replenishable can fuel our future!
1. Gasohol is higher in cost at the pump yet yields poorer mileage than gasoline. The price is $2.75+/- not including present government subsidies.
Oil reserves worldwide are diminishing rapidly. As the stocks are depleted, the prices will continue to rise. The age of fossil fuel is leaving and will soon be gone. As our entire economy is based on energy, is it wiser to prepare by creating alternative fuel systems or by ignoring a massive oncoming problem? As technology improves, the prices for ethanol will continue to drop, very possibly below petroleum based gasoline as the quantities produced increase. Please note that gasohol is more environmentally friendly than gasoline. Also note that gasoline has 25% less energy than biodiesels of today and creates more pollution. Will diesel engines replace many of today's gasoline engines? They have in Europe and they use 25% less fuel.
United States Sustainable Energy, USSE, produces a biofuel with more energy than either gasoline or diesel and the fuel can be used in diesel or gasoline engines.
http://www.ussec.us/
2. Taxpayers are currently paying out in excess of $1.5 billion a year in subsidies to farmers to make ethanol production profitable.
Both industries are currently subsidized with most observers citing big oil receiving as receiving multiple times the tax monies, perhaps $25 billion annually.
http://www.monitor.net/monitor/10-9-95/oilsubsidy.html http://go.ucsusa.org/publications/report.cfm?publicationID=149
Our countries big oil requirements are one reason the U.S. has fought wars. What price can be placed on the lives given to protect our energy needs? What price is a fair price for economic independence? As big oil reserves decline, the price of ethanol and other manufactured fuels will become the better bargain. We can recreate the supply of biofuels while petroleum fuels begin to go the way of the dinosaur, extinct.
3. The reduction in corn supply available for livestock feed will drive up the cost of food. Currently 70 percent of the corn produced is fed to U.S. livestock.
Perhaps the U.S. could cease its payments to farmers for not growing crops and put them all to work. An increased need for crops creates a stronger farming economy. Also, gasohol and other fuels are increasingly being created not by use of corn, but the cornhusks and stocks. Soybeans, algae and other materials will play an increasing roll in the creation of energy from plant life. This is a relatively new industry and will increase in size and complexity. We all should be grateful to those farsighted individuals that recognize the problems related to outsourcing our energy needs and the pollution of our planet.
4. Making a gallon of ethanol requires approximately 30 percent more energy — from fossil fuel — than the same gallon of ethanol produces in return.
What plan should the U.S. embrace for our energy needs of the future? Continued importation of oil from the Middle East and the exportation of U.S. dollars to other countries until the oil supply ceases to exist? India, China and many third world countries have growing needs for oil as their economies mature. The competition and price for oil will continue to increase dramatically as the supply dwindles. No solution is perfect, however, by creating our own fuel sources, we control our own future. The production of renewable fuels is not an option, it is now a necessity.
5. Corn farming is terrible on the environment — it causes more soil erosion and requires more insecticides, herbicides and nitrogen fertilizer than any other crop. Every gallon of ethanol produced results in 13 gallons of effluent pollution.
Absolutely, corn crops are horrible for the environment. Noting that the vast majority of corn is grown for beef feedstock are Americans willing to forego steaks, hamburgers and roasts to help reduce corns environmental ills? The trend in biofuels is again to utilize cornhusks, stocks, garbage, environmentally friendly soy plants and perhaps algaes. South Africa’s DeBeers has plans for a 24 billion-liter production schedule from algae. http://biopact.com/2006/11/south-african-company-to-make.html
USSE’s biofuel leaves a soybean mash that is used for a 7-3-7fertilizer, a truly recycled product that is very environmentally friendly. The solution isn’t to continue importing fuels, it is to intelligently fabricate them.
6. If ethanol replaced 10 percent of our gasoline usage, it would require in excess of 50 million acres of farmland in corn. All of which is subject to the whims of weather. Hope this answers some of your questions.
Who does one trust, the purveyors of oil in the Middle East or the weather? Once again corn is not the only plant source for biofuels and the materials making these fuels is becoming more diverse every year. It may take 50 million acres of farmland for corn but only a fraction of that for other more environmentally friendly crops.
One of America’s great legacies is her ability to produce crops, we are the world’s great exporter. We aren’t blessed with enough petroleum reserves to meet our energy needs but we have the world’s most productive farmers. We also have some of the richest farmland and people willing to work that land. By creating a viable biofuel industry we strengthen our farmers and in turn our entire economy. We can live within our energy means and let the entrepreneurial spirit of our free market economy free us from subsidizing big oil and the Middle East.
This post is an opinion and should not be considered reason to buy or sell any security, or to besmirch, belittle or berate any person, religion, cult, creed, race, sex, political party, company or company representative of any age or appearance.
