Pure ethnol -- a switch would mean you'd have to refit every car in the country, as far as I know.  Great boon for the auto parts manufacturers and the mechanics, sucks on a short-term basis for financially strapped drivers who can barely afford to have cars,, at all.  There are also some concerns about the emissions not being the lesser of the two evils - which you don't hear so much about, these days and I'd have to look up the info, myself, it's been so long since I've heard the debates.  But, with so many farms either being taken off the tax rolls for residential/commericial development or being bought up like crazy by foreign investors, you'd still have to worry about future shortages (just for lack of enough remaining tillable acreage to keep up with increasing demand) and you'd still be heavily dependent on outside commodities to get you from point A to point B. (Just because it's grown here doesn't mean it's owned & controlled here.)  Personally, I don't think bio-fuels are the long term solution... but, if serious work on a long-term solution would get underway, bio fuels could certainly provide an excellent short-term transitional alternative. 


I have heard about the issues with older cars running hot.  Depends on the amount of blend too.  90% fuel, 10% ethanol shouldn't be noticable, but most states that require it, got a little eager and require 20% ethanol.  On the plus side, it means most new vehicles should be able to conform to it, since it'll be more costly to make a vehicle for regions with and regions without it. 

I'm not in favor of a mandatory switch over, and I don't think it would really work even if it was tried.  If you could offer pure ethanol that was 25 cents less per gallon at current prices, the free market would help push the acceptance real quick.

As for the need for land, part of the problem is the political maneuvering to require corn, as well as the subsidy to the farmers growing it.  Corn is not efficent in conversion to ethanol.  Ragweed requires almost no fertalizer, no real maintance, and can produce a 10:1 return wheras corn only produces a 2.5:1 return when harvested for ethanol. 

As for pollution, it's not adding to the global warming problem, because the carbon unlocked from the plants being grown, is already part of the carbon above ground.  It's releasing carbon from below ground that is the biggest problem.  That's carbon that was locked away aeons ago and is now being added to the atmosphere.  It's still got to be cleaner than the exhaust from gasoline.  The chemicals and other crap added to it to be burned, not to mention refined, is pretty nasty stuff.

I have heard about the issues with older cars running hot.  Depends on the amount of blend too.  90% fuel, 10% ethanol shouldn't be noticable, but most states that require it, got a little eager and require 20% ethanol.  On the plus side, it means most new vehicles should be able to conform to it, since it'll be more costly to make a vehicle for regions with and regions without it. 

I'm not in favor of a mandatory switch over, and I don't think it would really work even if it was tried.  If you could offer pure ethanol that was 25 cents less per gallon at current prices, the free market would help push the acceptance real quick.

As for the need for land, part of the problem is the political maneuvering to require corn, as well as the subsidy to the farmers growing it.  Corn is not efficent in conversion to ethanol.  Ragweed requires almost no fertalizer, no real maintance, and can produce a 10:1 return wheras corn only produces a 2.5:1 return when harvested for ethanol. 

As for pollution, it's not adding to the global warming problem, because the carbon unlocked from the plants being grown, is already part of the carbon above ground.  It's releasing carbon from below ground that is the biggest problem.  That's carbon that was locked away aeons ago and is now being added to the atmosphere.  It's still got to be cleaner than the exhaust from gasoline.  The chemicals and other crap added to it to be burned, not to mention refined, is pretty nasty stuff.


I'm a historian, not a scientist, but the need is real and the time is now.  But where is the political leadership needed to push for these changes, and gore the BIG oxes whose interests would invevitable get gored (Al'ed).

Found it!  The emissions of most concern are these carcinogens:
formaldehyde, acrolein and acetaldehyde.

The links I attached to each takes you to scorecard.org's information on their toxicity.




Those links aren't too helpful though.  All those chemicals are present in the exhaust of your current car.  There is an increase in the amount of the chemicals according to one Australian report I could find, but it didn't state how much.  The only other study I found, revolved around 2 stroke engines, which your car definitely isn't (unless you drive a riding lawn mower or dirt bike).  Everything is dirtier with a typical two stroke though, since there's no catalytic converter on it.

The Australian report also confirms the 10% vs 20% blending problems I mentioned earlier. 

Your earlier mentions of the ethanol problem isn't unusal though.  Problems with vehicles from one region running differently in new regions is nothing new.  California emissions are quite different than east of the Rockies, due to the quality of the air being worse in Cali. than everywhere else.  It might actually be something unrelated to the ethanol, but since the mechanics are used to seeing that issue, they're just telling you the simple answer.  Or it might be the high blend rate.  An octane booster would probably solve the issue (they sell small bottles of it at auto part stores).  Ethanol mixed into gas tends to lower the amount of combustion, which will give you knocking.

There was an article in our paper today about running out of oil.  Regardless of when, we all know that it has to happen.  The question is not "if" but "when".  So, we MUST find alternate sources of energy NOW, and begiin to develope them, or we will all be cold, hungry, and in the dark in the not to distant future. 

(Modifying to strike outdated previous comments)

ethanol will also run up the price...you know the refineries are behind the price fluctuation...and holding back. Why is it we have more gas use now and the prices are going down?

See what the winner of an award said on the KGO-TV news link..something to the effect of they would be shooting themselves in the foot if they lowered the prices!