The Pros And Cons Of Ethanol

Ethanol: Good or Bad? In the pursuit of a cleaner renewable resource to fossil fuels, many scientist have found alternatives. Examples include solar, wind, biogas, geothermal, biomass energy and cellulosic ethanol. In the last twenty years, efforts have been made to reduce our dependency on foreign oil and ethanol has been an option. Ethanol is nothing new; in fact, it was first used in a motor built by Samuel Morey in 1826 (Ethanol History). Since the 1980s, the government started having oil companies add ethanol into gasoline to replace the previous lead additives to cut the carbon footprint it was creating. However, ethanol has brought on several debates regarding whether or not it is affecting our environment and economy negatively.
One topic that has been discussed is the idea that the use of ethanol in America is causing deforestation in South American countries such as Brazil. Pressure on the world’s forests from the renewable energy sector also continues to grow. Forests are being replaced with biofuel crops such as sugarcane and other ethanol feedstocks to meet growing global renewable energy demand. Dr. Daniel Nepstad of the Woods Hole Research Center insists that.
The demand for grain crops, created by the ethanol industry, increases crop value and offers enormous potential economic growth in small rural communities. In 2011, the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) estimated that the ethanol industry and other related industries in the United States directly employed 90,200 Americans. An additional 311,400 Americans found work in industries indirectly affiliated with ethanol production. These 401,600 jobs helped create nearly $30 billion in household income and contributed $42.4 billion to the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP).The record ethanol production also helped displace a record 485 million barrels of imported oil worth $49.7 billion