Regarding the topic of Ethanol from corn Rising prices for oil and gasoline have

Question

Regarding the topic of Ethanol from corn

Rising prices for oil and gasoline have been painful of late. Even with the current little bit of relief, it is probably safe to assume that energy prices will be going up, not down, over the long haul.

“Independence from foreign oil” is the cry. Ethanol from corn is the answer (says here). Ethanol can be used as an additive to gasoline, or as a replacement, in the form of E-85.

To grossly oversimplify the process, the starch in corn is broken down into glucose or other monosaccharides. The glucose is then fermented to produce ethanol, which can be purified by distillation.

The production of ethanol in this way involves political as well as technical considerations. It may or may not have been over-hyped. It may or may not have produced unanticipated problems. There may or may not be better alternatives.

Address these questions regarding the above issues:

11.Did the ethanol from corn idea sound reasonable enough to support with government funds?

12.Has the support paid off?

13.Where there any unintended (negative) consequences?

14.I know there are plenty of alternatives, ranging from conservation to more drilling to fuel cells to what have you. Say, for the sake of discussion, that ethanol from biological sources is needed. From what you know about the chemistry of carbohydrates, are there other potential sources than the current corn-based process?

Explanation / Answer

11) Ethanol idea sound reasonable enough to support with government funds however we have to subsidize the rate of production of ethanol. There is a lot of reasearch required to formulize the production of ethanol from any biological source.

12) Data is not suffecient to comment on this. In light of general government concerns the government must have asked to streamline the process in a more economic way. There are conuntries where government is supporting the use of ethanol however this depends upon the availability of land area for production of corn.

13) There are many unintended consequences. Definietly we can use Ethanol as a gasoline additive, it may work as extender although we can not ingnore its inferior character as compared to gasoline. The serious concern is the effeciency in production of energy from combustion of ethanol.

The transport can not be acclimatized with pipelines in case of ethanol, as there is high risk of absorption of water by ethanol. So we can transoport it through trucks, barges etc only.

Large production of corn also depends on good weather.

14) There are many other sources. One of the promising one is : Sugar cane left over fibre: (Bagasse)

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