Gasoline and Ethanol: David Vs. Goliath?

With the ever-growing drive most Americans are making to save on gas, shouldn't there be some type of assistance from the government to ease the growing costs? Some say that they are doing just that. With the car manufacturing industry launching programs with models that get the best miles per gallon, what are those of us with little to keep up with the rising gas fees (let alone a new "green" car) to do? Enter Ethanol.

As far as I've been able to gather, ethanol is a source of biofuel that can be used to power any vehicle on the road today that requires normal gas. It is said to be a cleaner burning fuel, and is produced from renewable resources, such as corn and sugar cane. Lots of it. In a study to find out How Much Energy Does It Take to Make a Gallon of Ethanol?, David Lorenz and David Morris found that: "...under the vast majority of conditions, the amount of energy contained in ethanol is significantly greater than the amount of energy used to make ethanol, even if the raw material used is corn." But for the amount of food items that we sacrifice for our transportation, are we really paying more? With cost for the mills and plants that it takes to produce Ethanol added to the actual loss of agriculture, albeit renewable, I find the cost is much greater.

Another point of interest is that ethanol is less efficient than gasoline. It takes 1.5 gallons of ethanol to do the same job your average gallon of gasoline does. That is 50 percent more. I suppose that may be the reason why we aren't getting it in full doses. There are, however, other ways to produce this substance that is very cost effective. Many are attempting to "home brew" their own Ethanol and succeeding. For most of us, though, this isn't very practical.

Overall, the most prominent questions have to be: What can we do and how much will it cost? Though ethanol is a much cleaner fuel than gasoline, it is far less efficient and the cost to produce it seems more costly than the problem we are trying to escape. What we need, as a nation, is an option that is both less expensive and is just as powerful as gasoline. As of yet, we have not found it and it seems we will not for a while to come.