What are the Advantages and Disadvantages of Ethanol Fuel?
In an effort to find a viable alternative to foreign oil, many politicians and environmental groups have been heavily promoting the advantages of ethanol fuel. Ethanol is a primarily plant-based fuel which can be produced from such sources as sugar cane, corn, waste paper and grains like wheat or sorghum. This organic origin is one of the advantages of ethanol fuel most heavily touted by its proponents, who strongly believe drivers would be better served by a dependence on domestic farmers than dependence on foreign oil producers and big oil companies. While ethanol does have a number of advantages over other alternative fuels and the gasoline it would replace, there are also some disadvantages to consider before making a large-scale switch at the pumps. One of the advantages of ethanol fuel is its organic origins. In Brazil, the world’s largest producer of ethanol at this writing, used sugar cane is processed to create a form of alcohol, much like the distilling process used to create
