In many ways ethanol is a viable, even welcome substitute for gasoline. It's not a fossil fuel, it is produced from renewable vegetation and it's much cleaner.
The biggest problem with ethanol is that, in North America, we like to make it from corn. Unfortunately ethanol production takes a big bite out of the corn supply sending prices higher and causing Mexicans to take to the streets to protest the higher price of tortillas. The corn produced also consumes a lot of fossil-fuel energy - planting, fertilizing, harvesting and transporting - fertilizer and it uses a lot of water, a dwindling commodity in parts of America where it's grown.
Do we really need to rely on corn for ethanol? Don't tell this to the farmers raking in big government subsidies to grow corn for the ethanol plants but the developing world can do it better, much better. How? By processing ethanol from sugar cane.
The Caribbean and tropical Pacific regions are full of places that grow sugar cane, one of the reasons we associate places like Jamaica with rum. Once all that cane is processed to produce sugar, however, it makes a dandy resource - a corn alternative - to produce ethanol. Best of all, it's a lot cheaper than using corn and it doesn't require the fertilizers and irrigation.
Brazil is the world's largest exporter of ethanol and it's prices are so good the US slaps a 54 cent tariff on every gallon to protect American producers. Washington is now structuring a co-operative deal with Brazil involving technology transfers to actually increase Brazilian production. Don't worry, Washington isn't being altruistic. America wants to undercut Chavez and Venezuela's oil industry.
Be that as it may, surely there is a roll to play for Canada in encouraging third world ethanol production. Giving them an alternative use for their sugar cane could go a long way to relieving the abject poverty of some of these small states.
2 comments:
Brazil is a GOOD example of alternate fuels use with the vast majority of their vehicles "flex-fuel-ready", that is, able to use ethanol or gasoline. Indonesia is a BAD example. They jumped into biodeisel by using palm oil. The palms became so valuable that tens of thousands of acres of jungle was burned away to expand palm oil production. The unintended result is that Indonesia is now the 3rd or 4th largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world.
Cheers, BIGSHOT GEOLOGIST
Thanks for pointing out the dark side of ethanol, the Indonesian example. Ethanol has become a motherhood issue to some but, as you show, we need to take a critical look at it and focus on those processes best suited to its production.
Corn isn't one of them. With desertification and groundwater exhaustion coupled with overpopulation, our corn fields are needed for food production. I think it was Gwynne Dyer who pointed out that two SUV tankfuls of ethanol use enough corn/grain to feed a man for a full year.
Thanks Geo
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