Friday, July 25, 2008

Ethanol and is it really the best alternative to foreign oil

Ethanol has long been seen as a ready made in the U.S.A. fuel alternative to foreign oil. Now with gas prices creeping over $4 per gallon at the pump, more and more manufacturers are starting to make this ethanol from corn. The result? Not a dime in lower oil or gas prices and a rapid increase in corn and other expenses which could end up in a global famine as corn and its many related food products is going through the roof.

As corn goes up, so do other commodities. This drives the costs of living and virtually everything we do or need higher. There are better alternatives than diverting much of the corn production to ethanol. As T. Boone Pickens, one of the wealthiest and smartest investors, has said, "lets use our largest natural resource - natural gas." This is already offered by several manufacturers for governmental and work related vehicles. Even the Honda GX has it - except its referred to as CNG or Compressed Natural Gas). The reason for compression is that Natural Gas is just that a gas and takes up to 10 times or more space than gasoline. This would not be very effective in cars and trucks for consumers if you had to drive around with a 200 gallon tank attached to your car.

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So, CNG was found to be quite effective and, although it still takes about 2 times the space of gasoline, it is still quite doable and convenient. With a special compressor machine one could even tap into their home gas line and refill their car at tremendous savings. Now if enough vehicles were switched to CNG the extra demand would cause a price increase in natural gas which would be detrimental to homeowners with natural gas heating and other uses. To offset this we should employ wind power, nuclear power and solar power. All three of these are being used sporadically throughout the U.S. and the potential for 20% to even 80% of our power to come from these three sources is there - this would result in much lower driving costs, home heating and energy costs and, importantly, a huge reduction in green house gases.

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I think ethanol is just a scam as it takes petroleum to transport it and grow it. Its just another quick band aid by the government.