Isn ethanol production just as harmful to the environment as fossil fuel consumption?
Criticism of ethanol production is often concerned with what happens when the world starts clearing vast amounts of forests to grow biofuel plants, such as corn. However, the MicroFueler is the first US ethanol refinery product to run off any kind of sugar feedstock. (1) Ethanol is made from sugar (a process called fermentation). Corn is a starch grain which must be chemically converted to sugar before ethanol fermentation can begin, This conversion consumes energy and increases carbon C02 emissions. In fact, in terms of reducing the world’s C02 emissions, corn is the worst grain for making ethanol. (2) Sugarcane is six times more efficient (in reducing C02 carbon) for making ethanol than corn. (3) There is no world shortage of sugarcane, which is the most widely available feedstock product on the planet. The world produces 1.3 billion metric tons (MT) of sugarcane per year and the surplus has increased every year, as opposed to corn which has almost no surplus. Sugarcane surplus has b
