David White submits:In 2005, Congress approved the Energy Policy Act that mandates the use of ethanol in gasoline. The level was 4.7 billion gallons of ethanol for 2007. This will rise to 7.5 billion gallons in 2012. In fact, President Bush was pressing for an extension of this mandate to 35 billion gallons of ethanol by 2017.
At first people thought this was a great idea for something to replace MTBE, or even just substitute in some way for regular gasoline. However, several problems have arisen since then. First, this is an incredibly inefficient way to produce a gasoline substitute. It is estimated that the diesel fuel needed to run the harvesters, the transportation equipment, etc. amounts to approximately one half of the total volume of ethanol produced. These harvesters are also producing smog, so we're not really saving there either. If you then consider that one gallon of ethanol has only about two thirds of the energy content of 1 gallon of gasoline (i.e. your gas mileage will be lower per gallon with more ethanol in the gas mix), the actual benefit of ethanol as an oil substitute is minimal (1 – 1/2 – 2/3 * 1/2 = 1/6). Add to this all of the other costs associated with ethanol production such as labor, etc. and you are really just digging a hole for yourself.
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