Oil Prices - What to do?

[jimapplesmith]

According to Wikipedia, ethanol produces 23.5 MJ/L, regular gas produces 34.8 MJ/L. That is 32.5% less energy.

If I make a trip from San Diego to New York, with a fuel efficient car, I would need about 100G of regular gas.

To make the same trip, I would need 103.4G of Gasohol (10% ethanol and 90% regular gas), which is made of 93G of regular gas and 10.4G of ethanol.

With best estimate of energy gain of 1.34 in US conversion from corn to ethanol, 10.4G of ethanol would need 10.4/1.34=7.71G of gas eqqivalent energy to make it. Hence, the trip using gasohol actually consumes 93+7.71 = 100.71G regular gas.

In order to make 10.4G ethanol in the US from corn, we also need 10.4*26.1 = 271.4 pounds of corn, which is about one person one year's grain consumption world average.

Therefore, by switching to gasohol from regular gas, this one trip did not save any energy need, and it deprived one person's grain supply for a whole year; it also waisted all the money that goes as subsidy to ethanol companies; it also emmitted all the polutions during the production of ethanol; not to mention causing seriel, dairy, and meat prices to go up.