Corn Ethanol
One advantage of corn ethanol is that it burns
hotter than gasoline. Although this is good for
engine efficiency, corn ethanol has lower energy
content. This means that it takes more corn
ethanol fuel to produce the same amount of
power compared to engines using gasoline.
Other disadvantages relate to the energy needed
to grow the corn, transport it to the refinery
plant and process it into ethanol. The entire
process is very energy-intensive and wasteful. Moreover, growing corn for the
ethanol market uses up valuable agricultural land. Despite these drawbacks, corn
ethanol fuel has become very popular. The U.S. government has encouraged
farmers to sell their corn to biofuel refineries, which has caused prices to rise
substantially—much more than any other biofuel source and more than selling
corn for animal feed.