Hawaii Ethanol Fuel Information

There are several places that can support a variety of different crops that can produce ethanol to be used as a fuel additive or substitute. From corn to sugar cane and beyond, a wide array of crops can be grown with the express purpose of producing ethanol based bio-fuel. There are arguments that the large amount of crops used in the production of ethanol have severely impacted the world’s food stores and prices in a negative way. This can be true, considering the same amount of corn used to produce enough ethanol fuel for one vehicle’s fuel tank once is the same amount that can feed an individual for a year.

The choice of crop used has a major bearing on the economics of ethanol fuel production. An acre of corn produces roughly a little more than one half the amount of ethanol an acre of sugar cane will. Not all crops are grown best in all areas, however, so in the US crops are typically the lower outputting corn while in Brazil, high yield sugar cane is used. Other, non-food crops are also used in producing food crops. These are often grown in areas that will not support the farming of corn or sugar cane. Switch grass is an excellent example, able to be grown in more arid climates. The problem with something such as switch grass being used in ethanol production that the product no longer fertilizes the ground it is removed from. As such, this aids in faster soil erosion and makes the land less viable for further use.

The US, the world’s leader in ethanol production currently has 270 hectares of land and growing dedicated to crops used solely for ethanol production. A hectare is equivalent to 10,000 square meters. This is a large amount of land that could otherwise be used to produce food stocks, which could possibly help lower the cost of food around the world and prevent starvation. At the same time, by stopping the ethanol production, both the economy and environment would suffer badly. New technologies are finding ways to produce ethanol from industrial, bio-mass waste, and even from the wasteful byproducts of the ethanol production process itself. The technologies are expensive now, because they are new, but in time the cost will lower and we will begin seeing more ethanol produced without using as much space. We will need to get to this point before we can move over to a fully ethanol fuel reliant society, though.