We’re searching for an across-the-board solution for our present exorbitant consumption of gasoline and it seems as though there’s none, at least for the present.
We are looking at an Ethanol additive for our present gasoline formulas, but this may only give us better miles per gallon and of course, substantially cleaner bi-products with its use.
Ethanol becomes a temporary fix, at best. The reason, obviously would be the need for the corn base sugars (as well as other similar sugar and starch crops) to produce it. It’s a simple deduction that it will ultimately begin to deplete the food stock of our nation and also hurt our exports of these grains.
We could, with the expected increase in need of our corn crop, grow the added acreage that would be needed to meet any anticipated requirements. We must keep in mind the amount of labor that would be needed to accomplish this task.
The question remains: Will the Ethanol approach keep the cost below our present gasoline prices?
All in all, we must accept the fact that we will not have the ability to have our gas and eat our corn muffins too. There are other crops which may be used to derive the Ethanol fuel, like soybeans, sugar beet, raw sugarcane, etc.
The fact still remains: the choice will be gas for our automobiles and along with this will ultimately come a vast reduction of one or more of our own key domestic and export crops.
It does not mean that this scenario will at some point come to be, but without other renewable energy fuels developed in tandem, including the Hydrogen based fuel cell to assist the Ethanol fuel method, this could lend itself to certain key food staple shortages. The final question may be: “Do we favor wheels beneath our feet, or food in our stomachs.”
Common sense tells us that at this point in time, we need to proceed with great caution. Naturally, Brazil has embarked on their Ethanol program for approximately a decade now, with fairly good results and have enjoyed the weaning off of foreign oil. Will it ever be 100% remains to be seen.
Solar energy is one possible approach being tinkered with to produce Hydrogen in order to power our future power plants and it’s hoped that electricity, which now helps to deplete our fossil fuels will help us to deliver the fuel required to produce power for advanced “Fuel Cells” being created to power the automobiles and trucks, and so on., of the future.
Unfortunately, producing Hydrogen by using solar energy electricity is pretty inefficient. This being said, solar power is totally renewable and therefore should be considered.
Along with the Hydrogen fuel from the solar approach comes recent announcements of some breakthroughs holding terrific promise with alternative energy products like scalar pendants from scalar energy.
Household items like the scalar pendant are the wave of the future in developing an eco-friendly environment.
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