1. It's primarily made from corn and sugarcane, and because US corn is treated with more toxic pesticides and fertilizers than ANY OTHER CROP grown in the US, the runoff from the settling of this fuel would create a major disaster in our water supply, which already has enough issues, thank you very much.
2. It takes a huge amount of crops to produce a small amount of fuel
3. It does pollute less… but produces more smog than regular gas.
4. It still generates a LOT of carbon dioxide through its processing and distilling, bringing its carbon emissions down relative to regular gas by a measly 13%.
5. Car mileage is lower than regular gas, taking it’s effectiveness down even further
6. Brazil’s landscape is being slashed at an unprecedented rate to create sugarcane plantations for ethanol production. There is no way currently known to reconstruct the rainforest, also known as the Earth’s lungs.
7. While contributing to carbon in the atmosphere, it also will start the rise of global hunger. Consider this: If all farmland in the world was used for ethanol production, we wouldn’t even meet 20% of the world’s demand.
Ethanol. The new thing? I surely hope not. It sounds good, to have a corn-powered car, but the math proves it to be a dangerous path for our society to go down.
Questions, comments and discussion are welcomed!
~Alexandra Bwye~
For CoOpera
Sources:
1. http://www.hybridcars.com/ethanol/benefits-drawbacks.html
2. Uliano, Sophie. Gorgeously Green. New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2008
3. Krupp, Fred. Earth: The Sequel. New York, NY: Norton & Co, 2009
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