Ethanol and Gas Prices Essays

Switching from the expensive oil to alternative fuels has moved from a dream to reality. Today, there are dozens of alternatives to oil that are currently available us to be used. One alternative to oil that is being used more today is ethanol. Derived from plant materials, ethanol can be a cheaper, cleaner alternative to the gasoline that our vehicles run off. When going to gas pumps, one will notice that much of the gasoline is up to 10 percent of ethanol. According to our text, most ethanol in the U.S. is made from corn, yet ethanol can be made from any biomes-- including garbage. (Turk & Bensel, 2011)

Of course there are reasons why we have not converted to alcohol burning vehicles before.  Ethanol costs more per gallon than gasoline.  However, new technologies have the potential to produce ethanol at significantly smaller costs.   Methanol, a high-performance liquid fuel made from wood or coal, can be produced at prices comparable to the prices of gasoline and natural gas.  In addition, oil does not occur naturally in unlimited supply, and just in the past few years, gas prices have been increasing dramatically.  Those prices will not fall back down.  However, the introduction of an inexpensive alcohol-based fuel would provide an alternative means of power and give consumers more choices.

Mankind has relied on non-renewable resources for thousands of years, and only recently has it started to take its toll on the environment. Chemists have been experimenting with different types of fuels and adding to gasoline to make it more efficient. This is when ethanol made its debut into the fuel industry, as an additive to gasoline. Ethanol is put into gas as a combatant against water, which can find its way into fuel tanks of vehicles. It reduces the effect that this water has on the health of the vehicle, and as a result increases gas mileage, and also increases the amount of complete combustion. Ethanol consumption has severe drawbacks pertaining to its effect on the environment. Production of ethanol increases the formation of

There is only so much oil in the world though and when that is gone we need to look for alternative sources of energy. Sources like ethanol produced from Switchgrass.

Lastly, the reading passage claims that the price of ethanol cannot compete with the price of gasoline. However, the instructor verifies the claim is very weak by indicating the fact that the price will be competitive in the future. The reason is that the price will drop when more producer involves in producing ethanol fuel. The instructor also said that if the amount of ethanol fuel is 3 times than now, the cost will drop 40

In today’s society, many countries are vigorously experimenting with different products and resources in order to find new forms of energy. In America for example, there are many people debating on whether the production of corn ethanol should be expanded or reduced. Considering the arguments present in Passage A, Passage B, and the graphic, America should reduce the production of corn ethanol.

The world's oil reserve is destined to deplete and expected to peak in 2020 as it is decreasing in volume oil prices will go up, eventually leading to a plateau of oil based production.PErhaps As oil goes 1 barrel will produce 5.8 million BTU, it takes 75 BTU to boil a cup of water. As a substitute for oil I came to ethanol as a solution. if 1 barrel of oil produces 5.8 million BTU a barrel of ethanol will produce 3.5 million BTU. Ethanol could provide roughly 2/3 of the world's energy. But $770,000,000,000 for 11 days of world operation plus the additional 1/3 of energy needed to fill the oil void would cost much more than oil. Ethanol is $70 per barrel versus Oil is $40 per barrel. Is the extra cost worth the renewability? I don't believe

The author expresses some reasons which indicate that Ethanol is not an appropriate replacement for gasoline. The lecturer, however, refutes the claim since he believes that the arguments are not persuading.

Gas is an invaluable commodity in today’s society. It is used in everything from cars, to lawnmowers, to generators, to boats. Everyone uses it, but what exactly goes into it besides oil? One of the answers to this is ethanol. Ethanol has been going into gasoline since the 1920’s and was widely used during WWII (Gustafson, 2010). Ethanol gasoline became popular in the 1970’s due to the climbing prices of gasoline (Gustafson, 2010). The high price of gasoline was a result of oil shortages because of production cuts by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. (The Washington Times, 2006). The reason a rise in prices and a shortage of oil led to adding ethanol to gasoline was because ethanol was an easily and cheaply created (Gustafson,

and consequently increased the profit of ethanol producers. On the other hand, when gasoline becomes

Ethanol fuel has many positive features as an alternative to the use of liquid fuel. First, ethanol is renewable. A relatively safe fuel would show very few engine changes. Second, its energy density is much higher than with some of the other alternative fuels, such as methanol, which means there would be less volume required to go the same distance. With the third benefit of ethanol, it would be able to improve much of the agricultural economies by providing farmers with stable market crops, such as maize and sugar beets, and with

Rising food prices have led to a sharp change in tone in the biofuels industry. In the U.S., a number of senators, including presidential candidate John McCain, have called for relaxing or suspending the ethanol mandates and subsidies that are fueling an industry boom.

This essay will first discuss the advantages of using corn ethanol as the main source of fuel in the future, such as the renewable features of corn itself, and the benefits of using corn ethanol as an additive of gasoline instead of using gasoline alone. However, everything has its strengths and weaknesses. Therefore, the second part of the essay will discuss some of the weaknesses in applying the fuel into practical usage. For example, corn ethanol currently encounters technical limitations serving itself as a standalone fuel, meaning that corn ethanol can only function by combining itself with a certain amount of gasoline, while gasoline is a kind of fossil fuel. Lastly, this essay will conduct a comparison with other renewable resources in the world, including solar power, other biofuels, and hydrogen fuel.

The use of biofuels is much higher than predicted. The US demand for biofuels is the highest percentage, and we main biofuel use is corn ethanol. This has caused the price of corn to rise dramatically in other parts of the world. In an attempt to discover cleaner renewable sources for motor fuel, corn production began to make biofuel. This “ethanol” is blended with gasoline. The government gave incentives to the oil companies, and like most other incentives, this was over the top. Therefore, it became a race to see who could gain the most profit. Now most developed countries similar to the US are

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Converting every drop into biodiesel would meet about 5 percent of the U.S. diesel demand”(par. 5). This waste oil can even be found in fast food restaurants where it 's basically ready to be put into your vehicle. All that is needed is to burn the grease until liquid is derived from the grease creating a clean and effortless new fuel. Now biodiesel isn 't the only effortlessly made alternative, Ethanol, a corn based fuel, also is easy to make. An article from Consumer Energy Center says “Ethanol is processed via fermentation and distillation to produce ethanol, animal feed, and other by-products”(par 9). When we have all of these biodegradable products around why wouldn 't we use them to our advantage? All we need to do is burn and liquify the product we can create fuel really easy. Ethanol is also so easy to make, you can make it at home! The process is similar to making alcohol. If were able to keep production it 's able to keep costs lower. Pacific Biodiesel published an article stating, “The money stays in the community while reducing impact on the local environment and increasing energy security”(par 2). This again would keep production local and beneficial to the community surrounding it, making alternative fuels an important choice to look into and overall making them easier to produce. To sum up what has been said, alternative fuels such as Biodiesel and Ethanol are a lot easier to produce than gasoline.