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Everyday, millions of cars and billions of dollars worth of gasoline are manufactured without anyone so much as blinking in their direction. Many blame gasoline for environmental and health problems and urge the people of the world to stop their support of the petrochemical industry. The peoples' cry for less support is based on the fact that the refining and burning of gasoline is allegedly the main contributor to greenhouse gases and ultimately global warming. The alternatives to gasoline range from using a thousand household batteries with the result of running an engine to developing a car that draws its energy from the electrolysis of water. Although all these options are being investigated, a by-product of the fermentation of corn, switch grass, sugar cane or even soybeans called ethanol, also appears promising. While the support grows constantly for the use of ethanol as an alternative fuel, there also exits substantial evidence to the contrary.

Although ethanol has been a popular subject in current news, most people do not know what it really is. Ethanol is a liquid that is produced by the fermentation of corn, grass, or sugar. It is basically the same as the alcohol found in beverages. The molecular formula is C2H5OH. This means that in one molecule of the substance, there are two carbon atoms, six hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. It is extremely flammable and highly combustible. Ethanol also contains cellulose when it is formed by fermentation. Cellulose is an enzyme found in the cell walls of plants. It's what gives the plant structural integrity. Because of this enzyme, certain types of ethanol have been unusable as a fuel until recent years when processes have been discovered where the problem is possible to overcome (Ethanol 3).
The main use of ethanol in the U.S. today is its use in E85. E85 is a mixture of ethanol and gasoline that can be used in all cars. The mixture is 85% gasoline and 15% ethanol (E85 1-5). In August of 2006, the Kroger Company announced their decision to sell E85 fuel in central Ohio with the hopes of spreading across the nation (Easton 12). Many companies have followed suit.
Although corn-based ethanol seems to be a "green" solution, its emissions are only slightly less than that of gasoline. To solve this problem, technologies are being developed where refineries can create ethanol from cellulosic materials (materials containing cellulose). According to Michelle Bryner in her article titled, "Researchers Calculate Benefits

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