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We hear about this new energy source that is both going to clean up the environment as well as reduce our dependence on foreign oil. That energy source is ethanol. Ethanol is mainly produced from corn, although it can be made from sugar cane. I do not believe that Ethanol, especially that made from corn, is a viable renewable energy source. It has a lot of downsides with very few benefits.

First, it takes away food that should be used to feed the world. The food crisis is only going to get worse. With more and more people to feed, it is going to take more and more food to do so. Why waste thousands and thousands of pounds of corn that could be used to feed stock animals or people to make a fuel that is not that clean anyways? Some might say that technology with provide us with a way to both make the ethanol and feed the population, but technology can only take us so far until we hit the limit of food that can be produce on the planet.

Secondly, in the grand scheme of things its not that clean. The idea is that the corn takes up CO2 as it grows and then releases it when it burns as fuel making it carbon neutral. Scientists are not sure that is actually true, and ethanol has a unrealized ecological effect especially in the Amazon. There they are clearing rain forest to grow corn to make ethanol. Which in fact causes a carbon deficit. This is because the rain forest is a CO2 sink, and as they burn the forest to clear land all that carbon is release and the corn planted there does not nearly take up the same about of CO2 as was released by the rain forest. (Now this may not apply to sugar cane ethanol which only utilizes (so far) land already cleared and it is sugar cane ethanol that runs cars in some South American countries).

The benefits to ethanol are that is does offset some of the carbon released in the atmosphere and if the US switched to ethanol driven vehicles it would reduce the dependence on foreign oil. But there are other green fuel options that would do a better job with the CO2 admissions and would still reduced the oil crisis.

Then why don't we hear about and research these options? Why is our government loath to ditch the ethanol plan? Simply, the ethanol push has create a corn growing boom in Iowa, creating lots of jobs there. No one wants to upset Iowa, because it seems to determine whether or not one can win the presidency? So the country will suffer a well intention green fuel mistake to benefit one state's worth of people, just doesn't seem right to me.

There are other green options that we should be investigating such as solar, wind, and water powers or other carbon rich compounds. Or we could make fuels from the uneaten parts of plants instead of the corn kernels. There is a lot more to be done in the arena of green fuels and we should be looking into it now instead of suffering a well-meaning mistake that is taking is nowhere.

Learn more about this author, Heather Lyon.
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