ethanol bad, butanol good
Anybody got an estimate on the amount of water it takes to produce 12 billion gallons of ethanol?
Yeah, in our rush to replace the consumption of oil (which comes out of the ground) with something else, we are most assuredly laying the groundwork for mass starvation somewhere in the world. US crop production has typically *FAR* outstripped our own needs, and we have been able to backstop populations around the world when there were droughts or crop failures.
Now, we’re grinding it up into mash, fermenting it, and putting it into our fuel tanks. There is no net energy gained, but we sure feel good about not using as much oil in our cars.
When the inevitable starvation happens somewhere in the world, because there is no more safety net to be had from US corn crops, may God have mercy on our souls.
I avoid ethanol tainted gasoline. We have a chain of Kwik Trip stores that sell their premium gas without ethanol. I use it exclusively. You get better mileage, from 10 to 15 percent better than the ethanol blend. My trucks love premium 100 percent gasoline.
Using food to replace plentiful oil, which we choose not to drill out of ANWR because we might disturb the mosquitoes, on a planet where half the people are hungry at least some of the time, is simply immoral.