The world is facing many problems and one of these is the fast depleting natural resources. These natural resources include fuel sources like coal, and most importantly oil. Almost the whole world is heavily dependent upon oil. The most important use of oil is for industries and individuals who use gasoline for running their factories and vehicles. Gasoline has become a very large part of our societies and our economies and it has become a need of people all over the world. The biggest problem with gasoline is that it is becoming more and more expensive to find more oil and to convert it into gasoline. The economic laws of supply and demand ensue and the price of gasoline keeps getting higher and higher. The burning up of gasoline for fuel also creates a lot of pollution that is bad for the environment. All these reasons have led people to come up with alternate sources of fuel and one such source is ethanol. This paper shall compare and contrast these two sources of fuel and list the advantages and disadvantages of both.
Ethanol is an alcohol and it has recently been identified as a cheaper and a more environmental friendly source of fuel and energy than gasoline. Ethanol is known as ethyl alcohol or grain alcohol, and there has been a lot of talk about this chemical in various media. Many people have proclaimed it to be the fuel of the future, one that is destined to replace gasoline. Many investors have already started giving a lot of thought in investing in future projects that involve ethanol production (Cocheo 48). There are many benefits of using ethanol as fuel. For much of American, it is not dependent on foreign sources, as ethanol can be synthesized from farm produces such as corn and other starchy crops. Ethanol is also a renewable form of energy, which is a big plus for all the 'green' members of our society. Also, many economists feel that ethanol would benefit corn farmers in the United States by funneling energy spending into agriculture. It is more environmental friendly as it produces less carbon dioxide and is less toxic than petroleum-based fuels. And last, but definitely not the least, ethanol is an economical alternative to petroleum fuels (Hiserodt 19).
If these were all true, and this were the end of the list, there would be no question that we should concentrate maximum efforts on ethanol production. There may, however, be other facts about ethanol's viability as a fuel that are not being considered before the nation plunges headlong into an alternative-fuels strategy that would have important economic consequences in the near future. And when these are considered, ethanol may no longer appear to be the fuel of the future that many people expect it to become. It is a fact that it always takes energy to produce energy. The mining and transport of coal are very energy intensive as are the delivery and refining of oil. Even the capture of solar and wind energy requires considerable amounts of silicon and steel to capture their "free" benefits. On the other hand, mining uranium, for use in nuclear power plants, requires relatively little energy since so little ore is needed, but there is a major energy outlay in the enrichment of the content from 0.7 percent to about 3 percent so that the uranium can be used in U.S. power reactors. Likewise, energy inputs are required in order to produce a useful energy-bearing fuel in the form of ethanol. But how much energy is required to produce a unit of ethanol energy? This is the question that will ultimately decide the future of ethanol production. If the energy input in order to produce ethanol is high relative to the energy content of the fuel produced, then ethanol would be inefficient as a fuel when compared to traditional petroleum-based fuels. If that proves to he the case, then it would be unwise to trade petroleum fuels for ethanol, thereby using a huge percentage of our farmland for little or no net energy gain (Hiserodt 19).
Debate on this point has raged for more than a decade, and depends in part on the crop from which the ethanol is to be produced. In Brazil, for instance, most ethanol is made from sugar cane, while in the United States, most is made from corn, an inferior energy crop in comparison. Nevertheless, corn producers, ethanol processors, and blenders of gasoline/ethanol assert that ethanol products boast a positive energy ration of from 1.25 to 1.35--in other words, from 25 percent to 35 percent more energy than is used in the cumulative production process. Those opposed to ethanol, on the other hand, see its production as a wasteful use of fossil-energy resources. The energy content of fuels is measured in British Thermal Units (BTUs), with one BTU being defined as the amount of heat energy required to raise the temperature of one pound of water, one degree Fahrenheit. Ten pounds of coal and dried oak have about 120,000 and 80,000 BTUs respectively.
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