Ethanol: viable as a transportation fuel?
Continuing about autos, the tutor turns the ignition on another topic: ethanol as a fuel in North America.
Sometime in the 2000s, if not before, ethanol’s use as an alternative auto fuel became a hot topic. Its use in Brazil is famous; why not in the US?
As I understand it, a couple of motivations spurred the use of ethanol:
- Possible ecological benefits.
- Relieving the high US expenditure on imported fossil fuels.
The first motivation, I believe, has come under serious question. For instance: some people mistook “renewable” to mean “reduced carbon footprint”; the two concepts aren’t necessarily related. Wood, for example, is a renewable fuel; yet, burning wood to meet America’s energy needs would probably not be ecologically sound.
The second motivation is possibly more rational. However, to make a fair judgment, one must realize that ethanol has only two thirds the energy of gasoline; therefore, the price of ethanol needs to be less than two thirds the price of gasoline for ethanol to be viable.
Today, the price of gasoline is $3.43/gallon, according to fuelgaugereport.com. The price of ethanol, at $2.17, (dtnprogressivefarmer.com) is less than two thirds the price of gasoline. Therefore, today, ethanol makes economic sense as an alternative to gasoline – theoretically, anyway. However, the prices of both fuels are volatile.
In future posts I’ll be exploring the ecological dimension of ethanol as a gasoline alternative as well as its economic aspect.
My children await their return to school; all the best to those trying to reach a settlement:)
Jack of Oracle Tutoring by Jack and Diane, Campbell River, BC.