Does ethanol combustion also create carbon dioxide emissions?
With regard to the effect on the climate, the carbon dioxide’s provenance is a crucial factor, i.e., whether it comes from ‘dead’ or ‘living’ carbon. Both of the latter are stored solar energy, but the ‘dead’ carbon (oil, coal, and natural gas) has been locked in (fossil-fixed) under the earth’s crust for 200 million years. Its release into the atmosphere results in an imbalance that affects climate. We get biofuels such as ethanol and biogas from the ‘living’ carbon that comes from the plants surrounding us today and that forms part of the carbon cycle, i.e., nature’s way of moving carbon around to facilitate life on earth. Photosynthesis in plants breaks the carbon dioxide down into carbohydrates, which build up the plants, and oxygen, which is emitted into the air. When the plant dies or is burnt, the carbon returns into the air and is then absorbed by other plants. The ‘dead’ carbon in the form of oil (petrol and diesel), carbon, or natural gas comes from plants that existed millio
