Is the ethanol boom about to bust?

Yes

8 of 14

by J. Lee Kenser

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Eventually this ideal of the perfect replacement will catch up with the ideals of reality. The reality is that with so many people unable to afford the new cars that run on Ethanol how can they truly think it is viable?

Let's consider also that how much if everyone drove the Ethanol capable vehicle most will not be running on 100% Ethanol anyway. Not too mention the reality that you're not going to reduce anymore oil consumption than before. The motor still requires the same amount of oil as before.

The production of the Ethanol plants will create yet, another energy draw on the economy. The process of a plant can take a lot of energy to produce a small amount of Ethanol overall. People really need to understand how the systems work in order to make the properly informed decision about using Ethanol as a viable solution.

While I studied Water/Wastewater Mgt., I saw a video about producing Ethanol and there truly is more to this than meets the eye. The amount of water that will be needed, the energy spent to produce the corn and the actual Ethanol we will be using as well as the waste products that will be left over all need to be truly taken into consideration.

Do your own research and understand what truly will be going into the entire making, usage and wastes left behind after it is all over. What happens if this idea fails and we wind up with more facilities with chemical waste products left over with no one interested in cleaning it up after?

What happens if the weather continues the way it has been the last few growing seasons in most states? How will they produce corn if there is no rain, or not enough to make the corn grow? What will we run our cars on then? Don't say soybeans cause they will fall under the same drought issues anyway. Viability overall truly is the most important issue in the decision to try something new.

I have no problem with trying to lower our usage of oil but, whatever we have to do must be both cost effective as well as energy usage to produce low. If this is not the case then what are we truly doing it for? What will be left over when we are all gone and the energy is used all up, the natural resources are non-existent?

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