4)To Ethanol or Not to Ethanol? That is the question.

--A worthy method of extracting glucose from crop wastes needs to be found to prevent specifying large amounts of land for the production of glucose.

--Solar power is a renewable source should be used to supply the large energy for the distillation process.

--The economic cost needs to be reduced with the help of government funding and awareness needs to be spread among communities to prevent alienation from this new fuel type.

-- Additional research and experimenting needs to be taken in consideration as calculations and methods studies are not completely accurate and have higher penalties.

-- The Australian government encourages the production of ethanol knowing its high expenses so it gives subsidies. Yet, petrol suppliers take this opportunity to excessively blend amounts of ethanol in petrol to gain the subsides leaving car tanks with incidents. The public is gradually gaining awareness of the amount of ethanol available in their fuel are apprehensive able its use and the effect it has on the mileage on their car  In order to prevent this action inspectors need to regularly test the fuel and the amount of ethanol.

--Car manufactures need to release cars with ethanol-friendly tanks.

The use of ethanol as an alternative fuel is introduced but only with 10-20% because car tanks need to be modified to suit the tanks. However, the current use is slowly increasing allowing manufactures to build new tanks that agree with the properties of ethanol. For example, flex fuel vehicles(FFV) are designed to run on 85% ethanol(E85).this type of fuel has the same performance as any other fuel when on the road but since it contains less combustion energy it runs about 25-30%  less km per litre. This technology has been available since 1980.

At this point in time, its disadvantages out weight the benefits; the costs associated with production are the same as normal fuel. While the cost of E85 is only 10% less expensive, it produces less energy so the price of fuel may be a little cheaper and less in quantity, so the consumer will buy more fuel than usual with a slightly lower price.

Other alternative fuel that can be used is biodiesel. It is a renewable fuel manufactured from vegetable oil, animal fat or recycled restaurant grease suitable for petroleum diesel tanks. The importance of using it is it increases energy security, improves public health, saves the environment because it’s clean and provides various reasonable profits.

 Published by S. El-Toutongy 

Freelance journalist