Ethanol fuel is a renewable fuel source that a lot of people hope will eventually replace gasoline in powering cars. Currently ethanol is widely used as an additive to gasoline. In the United States most gas has a ten percent ethanol mixture added to it in order to reduce the emissions and the amount of oil that is needed. The idea of using ethanol as a major fuel source appeals to a lot of people. The widespread use of ethanol would reduce green house gas emissions significantly. It is also popular politically because it reduces dependence on foreign oil and it helps to increase the income of farmers. For this reason the use of ethanol fuel is heavily subsidized in a lot of places. Despite all the advantages that it offers and the political support for its use there are a number of issues that need to be overcome if ethanol is going to be used a major fuel source.

The biggest challenge facing the ethanol is that it is made out of food. In the United States almost all ethanol is made out of corn. That means that farm land has to be used to grow crops that are going to be used to make ethanol. Inevitably that is going to result in an increase in the cost of food. This is already starting to become a problem despite the fact that ethanol represents only a very small percentage of current fuel usage. If it ever becomes our primary source of fuel there is going to be a real crisis. The simple fact is that there isn’t enough farm land to meet both our food and our energy needs from agricultural products.

The real danger is for people who live in third world countries. There is a very real danger that their governments could decide that growing crops for fuel would be an excellent source of cash. This would very likely lead to a situation in which all of a countries agricultural output would be focused on ethanol production. The result being that the government generate a lot of cash while the citizens have nothing to eat. This already happens with a number of cash crops, it will only get worse if agricultural products become an energy source.

The other major problem facing ethanol is that currently it takes almost as much energy from fossil fuels to make the ethanol as we actually get out of it. Making ethanol is very energy intensive since it the corn needs to be planted, grown, and harvested. It then needs to be transported to the refinery and finally turned into ethanol fuel. All of this uses fossil fuels. With current technology ethanol production is not very efficient. Unless this changes the future of ethanol is not very bright. Right now it is really only government legislation and subsidies that keeps it in use. This makes it unlikely that ethanol will ever solve our energy problems.