Ethanol: A Bad Alternative?

Though the environment continues to change rapidly due to human actions, people are beginning to realize some potential alternative fuel resource that could be safe to consume for the enviroment. Ethanol has been swarming around people's heads for years as a alternative to petroleum next to biomass.Using corn may have been seen as a clever idea for a alternative fuel, but it could endanger our wallets even further if it was handled carelessly.

At first, corn ethanol has not been deemed a threat to our environment, but a threat to the economy. People would have to pay "71 one cents in environmental and health cost," for gasoline while a corn ethanol user will have to pay around "72 to $1.45 in environmental and health cost."(Perterka) Segelken argues that the price of corn would raise as well as the"price of meat, milk and eggs because 70 percent of corn grain is fed to livestock and poultry in the United States."

People should not fear that corn ethanol is dangerous to our economic state, it needs to further develop in time to see its affects in all its entirety. Recently corn production has more efficient than ever than before by placing cattle feedlots close to ethanol plants which cuts about 30% of the energy used, according to Carey.Fuel production has to be stable enough to be able manage to meet such demands throughout the world.

Sources:
http://www.businessweek.com/investing/green_business/archives/2009/02/how_bad_is_corn.html
http://redgreenandblue.org/2009/02/03/study-finds-corn-ethanol-just-as-bad-as-gasoline/
http://www.news.cornell.edu/Chronicle/01/8.23.01/Pimentel-ethanol.html