Biofuel: Ethanol Alternative to Transportation Essay -- Politics Oil

Biofuel: Ethanol Alternative to Transportation For the past three decades Oil dominates the agenda of political discussion. With scares over price volatility, sizes of reserves, international imports and least of which are the environmental impacts due to carbon dioxide and other emissions. Various speculations and educated guesses place our total depletion of crude oil within the next 50 years and there is a general consensus between environmentalists that we steer toward a hydrogen transportation system given the projected work and nonexistent carbon dioxide emissions (Environmental Technologies class lecture, Santa Clara University). However many barriers stand in the way of attaining such a goal, most of which pertaining to the conservative nature of society. Society works in intermediary changes, a series of steps that blend rather than abandon one method of living for another. The option 22 states have chosen, is ethanol a combustive liquid fuel that could progressively move the United States toward a clean and su stainable environment and economy. Ethanol is an alcohol molecule consisting of two carbon molecules and six hydrogen molecules. Ethanol production in the United States results as a chemical byproduct from our most abundant food stock†¦ corn. Through four well known and commonly practiced chemical processes, Hydrolysis, Fermentation, Distillation and Dehydration. Hydrolysis is used to break down the corn into simple sugars which when added to yeast in the second processes of Fermentation produces ethanol and carbon dioxide (http://www.ott.doe.gov/biofuels/abc_biofuels.html). The final two processes of distillation and dehydration merely removes sediment and waters that result from production o... ...gy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. U.S. Department of Energy. http://www.eere.energy.gov/. 4/29/2004. 7)â€Å"Increasing America’s Use of Renewable and Alternative Energy.† U.S. Department of Energy. â€Å"Nature’s Power† Ch. 6 pp. 1-18. 8)National Ethanol Vehicle Coalition. Purchasing Guide for Flexible-Fuel Vehicles. www.E85Fuel.com. 9)Rezendes, Victor S. â€Å"Gasohol: Federal Agencies’ Use of Gasohol Limited by High Prices and Other Factors.† United States General Accounting Office. Gaithersburg, MD. December 1994. 10)Shapouri, Hosein; Duffield, James A.; Wang, Michael. â€Å"The Energy Balance of Corn Ethanol: An Update.† United States Printing Office. Washington, D.C. July 2002. 11)Shapouri, Hosein; Duffield, James A.; Wang, Michael. â€Å"USDA’s 1998 U.S. Ethanol Cost-of-Production Survey.† United States Printing Office. Washington D.C. January 2002.