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| Making ethanol, Courtesy Iogen Corporation |
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Ethanol Fuel
By Kate Ferlic
Making ethanol is a bit like following a recipe from an old Farmer's Almanac: Grind corn into flour; add water and enzymes to turn the flour into sugar; add yeast until you have a syrupy concoction; strain the solids out; distill. Essentially, ethanol is a taste-bud killing moonshine with a 200-proof kick. Pour at least two-to-five percent gasoline into the mix and the low-budget liquor becomes usable in a gas tank. With the proper permit and a bit of time and effort, you could produce ethanol at home in your very own still. But considering the increasing availability of this cost-efficient green fuel at stations around the country, you'll probably never want to.
Election-year politics have brought ethanol into the limelight recently, with candidates hoping to woo Iowa corn growers before the straw polls, but an ongoing debate continues over its effectiveness and environmental benefits. Proponents say that widespread use of E85 (an 85 percent ethanol, 15 percent gasoline blend) could significantly reduce both oil imports and carbon dioxide emissions. But skeptics argue that the production of today's ethanol, mostly made from milled corn kernels, burns fossil fuels and produces only 30 percent more energy than it takes to make.
Ethanol can be created from any starch or cellulose, and scientific and environmental organizations contend that "cellulosic" ethanol, made from crop wastes or grasses, will become a valuable source of energy once technology evolves to make it cheap enough to mass-produce. Cellulosic outside the country," he says.
Added bonus: Since ethanol burns at a lower temperature than gasoline, it incinerates more completely, reducing the particulate matter in auto exhaust. Increased use of the starch-derived fuel could help U.S. cities like Houston— which has held the Environmental Defense Fund's dubious distinction of "America's Smoggiest City" since 1999— to clean up their acts.
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