Renewed interest on ethanol, a grain alcohol, dominated
the news coverage of President Bush's visit to
Brazil recently. It was on NPR every 15 minutes during All Things Considered when I drove home
Is ethanol green? Is ethanol good for us? The answer largely depends on what you consider to be part of the equation. The primary economic motivation of ethanol fuel is to rid of dependency on oil, mostly the imported portion in the United States. Ethanol is also touted as "clean burning" because of its low pollution.
However, the environmentally challenged drivers should think twice before jumping onto the ethanol bandwagon. As I have understood it, producing ethanol can be quite an ethical dilemma.
Brazil, the largest producer of ethanol in the world, makes ethanol from fermented sugar. Where does sugar come from? Sugar canes. Although the majority of the Amazon Rainforest deforested has been turned into grazing land for cattle, I would not be surprised if the same is and will be done to clean out land to grow sugar canes. According to Wikipedia article, ethanol releases 30% less energy than gasoline per volume.
This means we need to grow more corn and sugar cane in order to produce enough ethanol to fully replenish the current consumption of gasoline. There just simply isn’t enough land for growing those crops right now.
Obviously, deforestation has had a dramatic effect on earth climate. It also has had a positive effect on the rural economy of Brazil. It’s just funny to see the media jumping on something “cool” just because it seems like a nice alternative to gasoline fuel. The harsh fact of going true green is you simply cannot accomplish this without an implicit negative effect on the environment while also steering clear of negative economic effects. It is a give-take dillema politicians don’t want to talk about and that the media has a hard time conveying.
Ethanol may give us a buzz in the head, but it is still not worth the hangover for me.
1 comment:
Hey Cecily, nice blog! Yes, ethanol is more complicated than it seems at first. I think one of the big problems with corn is that a lot of energy is expended in growing the corn... especially in the production of the fertilizers.
However, on the other side of it, I think right now we already grow more corn in this country than we use (due to lame farm subsidies), so if it's gonna be grown anyways then I guess use it for something good rather than throw it out?
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