I read an article in Newsweek magazine a couple of weeks ago regarding bio-fuels. The article was addressing the issue of using corn as an alternative fuel source for automobiles, which I had thought made a lot of sense. But after reading the article and reading what the bio-fuel expert had to say, I must say that corn to gas is not the answer.
The amount of energy it takes to produce corn is one of the concerns that were discussed. We often do not think of where things in our lives come from. The corn has to be grown from a seed-that was mechanically husked by a power consuming machine, the fields need to be plowed by a gas powered tractor, the seeds are then planted by a gas powered machine and through out the corns growing period fertilizers and chemicals (both brought into being by gas powered machines) are applied by gas powered machines. Finally the corn is picked by a gas powered machine and processed into ethanol by an energy consuming process. When you add all this up it is easy to see why corn can used as a fuel due to all the energy that goes into producing it. There are some laws of science that are beyond my comprehension about that idea, but the human body is a good example. We have to consume a lot of food to produce our energy (and sometimes gas).
The expert in the Newsweek article finished up the story by clarifying the fact of bio-fuel with a this statistic; if we used ALL of the corn grown in the United States and only made fuel, it would only supply 3 1/2% of our annual fuel consumption, which according to the article, we could save that much on gas consumption if every driver made sure that their tires were properly inflated to the right pressure.
Maybe we should have mandatory tire inflation check points?
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2 comments:
Your milage goes down with ethanol too, so you have to use more corn fuel in the long run to go the same amount of miles with "regular" gas. Good post!
Heh, people like to omit that kind of information, it appeals to a lot of people if you do. Specifically, anyone concerned about pollution.
I would love to see people more educated/practical about things like: Closing gas caps, inflated tires, clean air filters. All of these don't require innovative technology, and reduce gas use by quite a bit. Just requires some intuition. Which is asking a lot these days. :(
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