Corn-based fuel for vehicles?

Keven Drumgole: Car manufactures are now producing cars more designed to burn ethanol and/or straight gasoline. Really, any car can burn ethanol. But, what I find funny is nobody is mentioning the fact that it takes more ethanol to get the same amount of energy from a regular gallon of gasoline. For example, one gallon of regular gas gets 25 mpg in a vehicle, but in that same vehicle it will take 1.25 gallons to obtain that same distance. So, is there really any savings??? Especially, when you consider you're going to pay the same or more for the ethanol???...Show more

Elden Dedon: Brazil doesn't use corn for ethanol product, it's made from sugar cane, which is a better crop for ethanol.

Coleen Carignan: corn based ethanol isn't gonna work. it takes almost as much energy to turn corn into fuel as the ethanol yields, takes too much crop land to grow the corn, leaving less to grow food, running up the price of many different kinds of food.

Agustina S! timmel: Its just Ethanol and all cars can run on 10% ethanol some are made that can run on 85% ethanol.

Luther Plagmann: Vehicles than run on corn-based fuel, i.e. ethanol, have been built and are being used in parts of North America already. The major car makers have actually launched models that are compatible with this fuel, for example, see http://images.businessweek.com/ss/06/05/ethanol_ca... for a slideshow of such vehicles. However, they are expensive and ethanol is not widely available.A related question though, is how environmentally friendly ethanol actually is. It is true that ethanol-powered vehicles will produce less pollution. However, if it takes more energy to grow the corn than the fuel itself will actually be able to provide, then we might say that corn-based fuels are BAD for the environment. To produce the corn, we will need fertilizers that may be harmful to the environment, lots more farmland (and for the U.S., there will likely be insuf! ficient land within the 48 states to grow enough corn to meet ! demand), more farm and transportation equipment to get the ethanol to the markets where it will be used. This is a point of debate, made all the more heated because the billion dollar corn producers pay Washington lobbyists to promote a "green" image of ethanol to lawmakers and the public. I myself lean more towards the more cautious view that this question needs to be objectively resolved before we can wholeheartedly adopt this alternative fuel....Show more

Herma Ellebrecht: The cars are successful. But as usual, the government is putting its money into the most expensive, least efficient means of making ethanol. Manufacturers are already making E-85 flexfuel cars. That's 85% 'corn based'. There's no real reason we can't go to E-100 using the same technology. But for best results, we need to get our ethanol from switchgrass.

Adam Momaya: problem is there is not enough corn, US is now importing it from Mexico, which causes prizes to go sky high in Mexico, cre! ating more poverty. More seriously, Brasilians jump in th business, cutting more and more rain forest to grow more corn and earn the big buck. More CO2 because less trees .. .It's a complex issue. WWF does not support this type of alternative fuels for these types of reasons.

Dexter Dingus: its not a good idea to make cars that run on ethanol since more fuel will be used than made during manufacturing. all the corn has to be transported using big trucks and crushed using huge machines that waste way more fuel than they make so it is a pointless cycée that wont benefit anyone.

Margy Sandquist: They're talking about cars that run on E85 ethanol, which is 85% ethanol (alcohol that comes from corn) and 15% gasoline. And yes, these vehicles have been fairly successful. Right now the price of corn is going up because more corn is needed to produce ethanol, and the Federal Government is working with subsidized farmers to get them to grow more corn for ethanol produc! tion. The concern is that all the corn growers in the world may not be! able to produce enough corn to make enough E85 for the U.S. alone if we were to switch over. That's why the auto makers are looking into other alternatives such as fuel cell technology. Don't expect the Big Three to start producing lots of vehicles that run on E85 within the near future because E85 is not widely available. It'll take a big push (and probably some level of intervention by the Federal Government) before the auto industry invests heavily in E85 vehicles....Show more

Alisa Kaleiwahea: Thinking about Global Warming and how there is so much flooding and bad weather that destroys major crops around the world ...Why would you want to burn your food supply in your car?