Gas is an invaluable commodity in today’s society. It is used in everything from cars, to lawnmowers, to generators, to boats. Everyone uses it, but what exactly goes into it besides oil? One of the answers to this is ethanol. Ethanol has been going into gasoline since the 1920’s and was widely used during WWII (Gustafson, 2010). Ethanol gasoline became popular in the 1970’s due to the climbing prices of gasoline (Gustafson, 2010). The high price of gasoline was a result of oil shortages because of production cuts by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. (The Washington Times, 2006). The reason a rise in prices and a shortage of oil led to adding ethanol to gasoline was because ethanol was an easily and cheaply created (Gustafson, …show more content…
This is the creation of acetic acid from ethanol and a bacteria called Acetobacter aceti (NIST, 2014). The Acetic acid in the gas tanks under gas stations has lead to a faster than projected corrosion of the walls of gas tanks under gas stations (NIST, 2014). This increased corrosion will create holes in the walls of gas tanks letting the gas spill out into the ground around the tank. This could pollute groundwater in the surrounding area and kill plant life. The walls of gas tanks are typically made of cast iron or steel, which the acetic acid will eat through at a rate of about 1mm per year (NIST, 2014). This is not only much faster than expected, but a reason for research on a better metal to use for gas storage …show more content…
Microbially influenced corrosion “is the biologically mediated deterioration of material” (Williamson et al, 2015). This includes the microbial production of organic acids, like acetic acid (Williamson et al, 2015). Normally, ethanol would kill bacteria, but there are some cases where it becomes a carbon donor for the creation of acids (Williamson et al, 2015). This is what happens in the gas tanks under gas stations that creates the acetic acid that corrodes the
California laws have very high support for advanced biofuel development. The California Legislature urges the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to take action to amend the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard to favor non-food crop biofuel. As a result, this would promote the development of advanced fuels by simply using grasses, wood, algae and other plants to make cellulosic ethanol. Because cellulose makes up nearly half of all plant biomass, cellulosic ethanol is considered the largest potential source of biofuel in the near future. This would eliminate the need to rely on other countries for fuel when the U.S. can establish their own industry. The positive externalities would be more jobs and less pollution in America. However, the process of converting plant-life into ethanol is much more difficult that it is for starch to become ethanol. Consumers may yet face exceedingly high prices for cellulosic ethanol from within U.S. borders.
Switching from the expensive oil to alternative fuels has moved from a dream to reality. Today, there are dozens of alternatives to oil that are currently available us to be used. One alternative to oil that is being used more today is ethanol. Derived from plant materials, ethanol can be a cheaper, cleaner alternative to the gasoline that our vehicles run off. When going to gas pumps, one will notice that much of the gasoline is up to 10 percent of ethanol. According to our text, most ethanol in the U.S. is made from corn, yet ethanol can be made from any biomes-- including garbage. (Turk & Bensel, 2011)
In the United States, ethanol is primarily used as a blending element in the production of gas and as an alternative fuel. More than 95% of the gasoline sold in the United States contains ethanol. Most of ethanol blending into U.S. motor gasoline occurs to meet the requirements of the 1990 Clean Air Act (RFG Fuel) and the Renewable Fuel Standard set forth in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. (U.S Energy Information Administration)
The higher price of ethanol in many areas is made worse by ethanol’s second disadvantage that it, regardless of the price you pay for it, contains less fuel efficient energy than gasoline. In short, this means cars won’t travel as far on a tank of gas, and most cars fuel economy will decrease by 20-30 percent. This is very
Ethanol is the fuel of the future. Really? How so? Ethanol will solve the energy crisis. That sounds a little far fetched. Ethanol stimulates time travel. Alright, that’s just a flat-out lie. It seems that these days everybody and their brother thinks that ethanol is the magic key to the future of powering automobiles and solving the problem of dependence on foreign oil. Well, that is not the case. Ethanol is not the energy source of the future; in fact ethanol only creates more energy problems.
Mankind has relied on non-renewable resources for thousands of years, and only recently has it started to take its toll on the environment. Chemists have been experimenting with different types of fuels and adding to gasoline to make it more efficient. This is when ethanol made its debut into the fuel industry, as an additive to gasoline. Ethanol is put into gas as a combatant against water, which can find its way into fuel tanks of vehicles. It reduces the effect that this water has on the health of the vehicle, and as a result increases gas mileage, and also increases the amount of complete combustion. Ethanol consumption has severe drawbacks pertaining to its effect on the environment. Production of ethanol increases the formation of
Cars, just about every household in America has probably at least two parked in their driveway at any given time. The dependency on the gas powered car has substantially increased since it’s invention and production back in 1908 by the Ford Motor Company. As of 2014, it was estimated that there were over 88 million cars produced world-wide and growing every day. (Fig. 1) Even though a lot of these vehicles might be the new Hybrid edition, the majority of them have a dependency on oil and gasoline products for their survival and existence. Petroleum products, such as oil and gasoline do not come cheap or even free to the consumer, even the
Fuel degradation is another common problem facing deployed military personnel. The last thing you want to do when you come home is to pull and flush the gas tank before you go for a ride. All fuel will degrade over time. In fact, the latest wave of ethanol blended fuels don't store well at all. This isn’t a problem for drivers that run through a tank of gas within a three month period of time. Thankfully, there are certain things we can do to extend the life of this petroleum
You wake up this morning, put on some shoes, and head to work. It's early—you're feeling a bit slow and your gas tank is almost empty. You stop at your local gas station, pick up a coffee and ten bucks in regular unleaded gas. Harmless, right? Wrong. That gas you just put in your tank contains up to ten percent ethanol (alcohol based fuel). That might not sound so terrible right now, but potentially it can be.
Well we all know that the energy system is very unstable because the total energy available on the earth is limited, and man has exploited all the conventional technologies to fulfill his needs. By the use of these conventional technologies, the world also has a disability, with problems such as global warming. Consumption of energy by man increased gradually as his wants also increase. The conventional energy resources mainly include fossil fuels, but research shows that this fuel source will be depleted completely in approximately 20-25 years. This could cause major setbacks around the world. As a result, we need an alternative source of fuel that could keep the world running on its wheel. One possibility is ethanol. Chemically extract
Crude oil can be refined to produce many kinds of combustible fuels (International Agency for Research on Cancer. 1989), but when introduced to the environment it can be harmful. Some of the major ill-effects are the decrease in growth or death of some plant life and organisms. Seed germination can also be affected by the introduction of crude oil to the surrounding soil (Henner et al., 1999). When crude oil is introduced to water in high concentrations, the growth of organisms are effected in a negative way and can cause plants to stop undergoing photosynthesis and death can ensue (Pulich et al., 1974).
Next, the demonstration flasks that were not inoculated did not have biomass adhering to the edges of the flask. Evidently, microbial growth could not have occurred in the flasks that were not inoculated, therefore biomass formation was inhibited in these flasks. Moreover, the degradation of hydrocarbons into simpler products did not occur in these flasks. Again, this is attributable to the lack of microorganisms in these flasks. Biomass was present in the two flasks that were inoculated by a mixed bacterial culture. Most importantly, however, biomass formation was most prevalent in the flask with mixed bacterial culture inoculum and surfactant addition. This observation aligns with the results outlined by Van Hamme et al., (2000), who noted that the addition of a surfactant to a mixed culture resulted in higher biomass levels throughout the incubation period (109 CFU/ml) than compared to a mixed culture containing only crude oil (108 CFU/ml). Moreover, the addition of a surfactant resulted in a 48 hour growth phase, as opposed to a 24 hour growth phase in the absence of surfactant (Van Hamme et al., 2000).
This essay will first discuss the advantages of using corn ethanol as the main source of fuel in the future, such as the renewable features of corn itself, and the benefits of using corn ethanol as an additive of gasoline instead of using gasoline alone. However, everything has its strengths and weaknesses. Therefore, the second part of the essay will discuss some of the weaknesses in applying the fuel into practical usage. For example, corn ethanol currently encounters technical limitations serving itself as a standalone fuel, meaning that corn ethanol can only function by combining itself with a certain amount of gasoline, while gasoline is a kind of fossil fuel. Lastly, this essay will conduct a comparison with other renewable resources in the world, including solar power, other biofuels, and hydrogen fuel.
What environmental benefits do we receive form an influx in ethanol as an alternative fuel? First let’s look
Since few people have flex-fuel cars, only 2,250 service stations in the U.S. (excluding private stations) have ethanol pumps, out of a total of about 176,000 stations. It is simply not profitable for more gas stations to carry this fuel. On the other hand, the government wants to transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources and, therefore, wants to