I read an article a few years ago written in Costco magazine which compared fossil fuels to ethanol. The ethanol side was written by a representative from the corn industry but the fossil fuels side was written by a professor from a major college in the US (I forget which one). The argument for ethanol was basically the one you hear in their marketing campaigns and did not lay out any science behind the argument. The fossil fuel side laid out the science regarding whether one is better for the environment than the other which is the main argument used by the ethanol industry. The main focus was greenhouse gas emissions. The author stated that one of the most dangerous greenhouse gases produced by both fossil fuel and ethanol usage was nitrous oxide. He said the fact is that to make and burn one gallon of fossil fuel vs one gallon of ethanol, a considerably larger amount of nitrous oxide is produced (I think he said like 100 times more but I can't remember exact numbers). The main reason for this is that plants require nitrogen to grow there is nothing else that can replace that therefore plants have to be fertilized with large amounts of nitrogen which releases nitrous oxide into the air! It also produces nitrous oxide when burned.Well, assuming you are in the U.S., our premium gas, 91 octane or higher generally doesn't contain any ethanol.
Shell gas Canadian tire to name a few.
All depends on where you live and how much the farmers are being subsidized.
If a government mandates the use of ethanol, then you are stuck with it.
Does the burning ethonal reduce pollution, yes, but only very marginally.
So how much diesel fuel is burned in producing ethanol?
Soil tilling, planting, fertilizing, harvesting, transporting to the ethanol plant, then, how much natural gas is burned in the process, along with the air pollution of the fermentation of the corn, I know, I lived down wind from an ethanol plant...Greek
Or is it yuk, kuk, ???
You figure it out.
SHUMBA
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So to second your point it is not about being green, that is a myth, it's about subsidizing the corn industry. I also should mention that the corn industry lobbied (in the US) to have ethanol content in gas raised to 15% but it was shot down. The vehicle manufacturers and fossil fuel industry worked together to defeat it because the vehicle manufacturers were worried about the increased cost of manufacturing an engine that could withstand that amount of ethanol over the life of the vehicle.