Is Ethanol Good for the Environment?
This at Tech Central Station:
It turns out that, despite all the claims that ethanol is good for the environment, ethanol may be a net polluter in many ways. Ethanol does reduce carbon monoxide emissions because it is an “oxygenate,” which means it adds oxygen to the fuel, converting the CO into CO2, carbon dioxide. (Seeing how CO is not greenhouse gas, our ethanol policies result in making more CO2; what would Al Gore say?) But on the question of hydrocarbons, ethanol appears to make things worse.
Alcohol’s hydrogen bonds are weaker than those of water or even gasoline, making alcohol more likely to evaporate, both under high heat, and under normal temperatures. In scientific terms, this means ethanol and other alcohols have greater “volatility” than gasoline.
More volatile fuels send more hydrocarbons into the air, because less of the hydrocarbons will be burnt up in combustion, and more will simply evaporate and float into the air. Adding 10 percent of ethanol to a fuel mixture increases the volatility, sending more smog-causing hydrocarbons into the air.
The balance of the article goes on to detail how various Administrations (Clinton & Bush) eased rules on volatile organic chemicals or ethanol or it would have violated the Clean Air Act.
And it is also a comedy. The damage from farming is probably worse on the environment that the pollution from oil itself.
“The use of ethanol as a substitute for gasoline proved to be neither a sustainable nor an environmentally friendly option,” scientist Marcelo Dias de Oliveira wrote “considering ecological footprint values, and both net energy and CO2 offset considerations seemed relatively unimportant compared to the ecological footprint.”
So here in Hawaii we are mandating a fuel that is driving gasoline prices higher and, in the long run, will damage the environment. Isn’t government wonderful?