Reply #5: Corn is not a good source for ethanol [View All]

[jbonkowski]

1) It would take all of the US corn supply, and more, to replace all of the gasoline we use. No more corn for eating?!?

2) Growing corn is very taxing on the soil. There is a really old church in the midwest that is eight feet higher than the surrounding cornfields, because 150 years of growing corn has depleted the soil so much. This makes ethanol a non-renewable source for energy, in the long term.

Some kind of genetically modified bacteria or algae that produces ethanol as a byproduct of metabolizing naturally occurring heat or sunshine, maybe along with some human waste, is about the only way ethanol could replace gasoline for all of the cars out there.

jim