Whats the deal with using ethanol for fuel?
Well corn ethanol was originally added to gasoline to prevent knocking in older engines after lead was eliminated from gasoline. Since the infrastructure already existed for ethanol and the lobbying that the agricultural business did the government decided to scale up production so it could be used as fuel. Ethanol can be an excellent fuel source but this depends entirely on what you use to make it. Sugar cane is far more efficient for example. I forget if ethanol production from corn is a break even as far as energy goes or if its less efficient. I do remember that ethanol is highly water intensive. Biodiesel from algae seems like a very promising source of fuel but the price needs to come down. We will probably still need some source of liquid fuel like biodiesel for freight and transportation but is see few reasons why electric, hydrogen, or air powered cars couldn’t start filling in for personal transportation.
