There are many stories going around about ethanol-free gas right now. Some of them are very much true. Others, not so much. We are here today to expose the lies and get to the truth. After reading this, maybe some of you will have a different mindset over some of the stories you have heard. After all, sometimes an urban myth is just a myth.
1)There is a story going around that ethanol requires more energy to produce than it puts out. This is wrong. If you did the research yourself, you’d find that the production itself puts out about 8.8 megajoules per liter. It was once considered a negative source, but not anymore. Today, the energy is about 90% more efficient than it used to be. This is especially true when it comes to the corn mills.
2)The production itself reduces the overall food supply. This is also false. Did you know that only 1% of corn is actually eaten by humans. The rest of it is used for supplements and others things of this nature. The ethanol actually uses a “wood” structure from within. There aren’t any food crops being used.
3)Another common misconception is that ethanol crops omit more “greenhouse gases”, instead of using natural gases. This is also unfounded and untrue. There have been several studies done on this, one of the first was way back in 1999. All reports have confirmed that most of the toxins come from gas-vehicles and nonroad equipment. This is where a majority of the air pollutants are coming from.
Another study was done on corn ethanol. It was concluded that using corn ethanol reduced the overall gas emission by at least 20% or more. Some have even started using purpose-woody crops for the next-generation fuels. Due to using this sort of energy, the gases which get emitted have been drastically less. Which is a good thing. You can find this information runs current with some of the on-site information.
4)One of the final myths we will be discussing involves the water itself. Some say that it requires way too much water to produce the ethanol. These numbers are also a fallacy.
It used to take a lot of water to generate the ethanol at one point. Those numbers have been drastically reduced. A current reading check out at 1 liter of ethanol for about 3.5 gallons of water. This is about as much water as it takes to produce a gallon of gasoline for your car, give or take.
So where did some of the criticism come from? It comes from the need to irrigate the feedstick crops during the drier months. The water is not coming from there. The water is actually coming from rain-fed crops being grown out in the Midwest. There is a big difference here when it comes to the water supply.
Another hole in this story lies in the ethanol itself. Some consider it to be dangerous and full of poison. It’s not. It’s actually pretty biodegradable. In fact, you are more likely to find ethanol in those happy-hour drinks you love to drink so much. Drinks like beer and bourbon have more ethanol than say the water used for the crops.
IN CLOSING
As you can see, there are a lot of myths going around about ethanol. A lot of half-truths about how and why it’s being used. As you can see from these 4 examples, ethanool is not the bad little monster everyone says it is, or believes it is. If you go online, you will find some more myths about this being debunked as we speak. Believe only half of what you hear, and believe less than half of what you see and read.