Popular Mechanics Article on Alternative Fuels

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Tempus @ Apr 26 2006, 10:56 AM) [snapback]245484[/snapback]</div>

That's a great article, thanks. It also offers actual numbers as to just how much corn and land this country would need to replace it's use of petroleum; something I've long asked for:

"One acre of corn can produce 300 gal. of ethanol per growing season. So, in order to replace that 200 billion gal. of petroleum products (that Americans consume annually), American farmers would need to dedicate 675 million acres, or 71 percent of the nation's 938 million acres of farmland, to growing feedstock. Clearly, ethanol alone won't kick our fossil fuel dependence--unless we want to replace our oil imports with food imports."

They also mention that you can't take full advantage of ethanol unless you switch over completely to ethanol, meaning that you'd have to sacrifice the ability to use gasoline. It sounds as if converting a Prius to E-85 would be a very good arrangement. You'd get more mileage out of the ethanol than you would from gasoline:

"The performance of E85 vehicles is potentially higher than that of gasoline vehicles because E85's high octane rating allows a much higher compression ratio, which translates into higher thermodynamic efficiency. However, FFVs that retain the capacity to run on gasoline alone can't really take advantage of this octane boost since they also need to be able to run on pump-grade gasoline."

And the fun part, at least for me:

"Cynics claim that it takes more energy to grow corn and distill it into alcohol than you can get out of the alcohol. However, according to the DOE, the growing, fermenting and distillation chain actually results in a surplus of energy that ranges from 34 to 66 percent. Moreover, the carbon dioxide (CO2) that an engine produces started out as atmospheric CO2 that the cornstalk captured during growth, making ethanol greenhouse gas neutral. Recent DOE studies note that using ethanol in blends lowers carbon monoxide (CO) and CO2 emissions substantially. In 2005, burning such blends had the same effect on greenhouse gas emissions as removing 1 million cars from American roads."