Corn-based fuel for vehicles?
I saw a few commericals for vehicles using this type of fuel awhile back. Does anyone know if these types of vehciles have been successful? Are the car makers planning to launch other vehciles that run on this corn-based fuel?
Other Answers (9)
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Its just Ethanol and all cars can run on 10% ethanol some are made that can run on 85% ethanol.
for a slideshow of such vehicles. However, they are expensive and ethanol is not widely available.
A related question though, is how environmentally friendly ethanol actually is. It is true that ethanol-powered vehicles will produce less pollution. However, if it takes more energy to grow the corn than the fuel itself will actually be able to provide, then we might say that corn-based fuels are BAD for the environment. To produce the corn, we will need fertilizers that may be harmful to the environment, lots more farmland (and for the U.S., there will likely be insufficient land within the 48 states to grow enough corn to meet demand), more farm and transportation equipment to get the ethanol to the markets where it will be used. This is a point of debate, made all the more heated because the billion dollar corn producers pay Washington lobbyists to promote a %26quot;green%26quot; image of ethanol to lawmakers and the public. I myself lean more towards the more cautious view that this question needs to be objectively resolved before we can wholeheartedly adopt this alternative fuel.
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corn based ethanol isn%26#039;t gonna work. it takes almost as much energy to turn corn into fuel as the ethanol yields, takes too much crop land to grow the corn, leaving less to grow food, running up the price of many different kinds of food.
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problem is there is not enough corn, US is now importing it from Mexico, which causes prizes to go sky high in Mexico, creating more poverty. More seriously, Brasilians jump in th business, cutting more and more rain forest to grow more corn and earn the big buck. More CO2 because less trees .. .It%26#039;s a complex issue. WWF does not support this type of alternative fuels for these types of reasons.
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Brazil doesn%26#039;t use corn for ethanol product, it%26#039;s made from sugar cane, which is a better crop for ethanol.
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its not a good idea to make cars that run on ethanol since more fuel will be used than made during manufacturing. all the corn has to be transported using big trucks and crushed using huge machines that waste way more fuel than they make so it is a pointless cycée that wont benefit anyone.
