By Charles Q. Choi, Special to LiveScience
Editor’s Note: “The Energy Debates” is a LiveScience series about the pros, cons, policy debates, myths and facts related to various alternative energy ideas. We invite you to join the debate by commenting directly on each article.
The Facts
Instead of relying on just gasoline, many cars are now also burning ethanol, more commonly known as drinking alcohol.
Although ethanol has just roughly two-thirds as much energy as gasoline, it already is finding increasing use in the gas tank. In 2007, ethanol displaced roughly 3 percent of U.S. gasoline usage, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, a science advocacy group.
Ethanol is typically made from corn, sugar cane and other crops. However, scientists are working on generating the fuel by converting hundreds of millions of tons of cellulose in prairie grass and leftovers from harvests and lumber yards that would otherwise go to waste. Six biorefineries originally scheduled for completion by 2011 sought to create such “cellulosic ethanol” to help the United States produce more than 130 million gallons of the fuel per year at roughly $1.20 a gallon. However, just one of these is currently under construction.
Critics of ethanol are often accused of shilling for the oil industry. On the other hand, supporters of ethanol are often charged with backing the increasingly powerful ethanol lobby.
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