Alternative Fuel Sources Post 5

  I found another very interesting article on my topic, alternative fuel sources. This actually kind of goes against many proposed ideas about alternative fuel. The article almost "shuts down" at least the idea of ethanol from corn. One excerpt made the point that ethanol is less efficient than gasoline and would cost more for motorists. This is a good point, but because oil in the Middle East is already causing gas prices to rise, I personally could see ethanol as just a part of a combo of alternative fuel. While it's important to try to use cleaner fuel, it ends up being more expensive for the consumers (which are the people who ultimately have to get the gas at the gas station).
   Here's a little excerpt from this article:

"For the first time since the push to use more ethanol in American vehicles began five or six years ago, ethanol costs more than gasoline. E-85, a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline, has recently been priced higher than regular gasoline at some stations.

"It's not going to last," said Wallace Tyner, a professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Purdue University.
The reason is that E-85 is a bad deal for motorists when it costs as much as gasoline. Ethanol contains less energy per gallon than gasoline. A gallon of ethanol normally will propel a vehicle fewer miles than a gallon of gasoline."

   While I may have recently implied that we should use more alternative fuel, this opened my mind a little bit, and made me realize potential problems with alternative fuel such as ethanol. I kind of see why America hasn't made a whole lot of effort over the past few years to try to use more alternative fuel. That being said, however, the U.S. is dealing with rising gas prices because of imported oil, and because China is in the ballpark to compete with America, it's time to take extra measures to make sure that dependence on imported oil doesn't lead to another attack similar to the 9/11 attacks.
  It's time that America toughens up a bit more and starts initiating in more research to find the right combination of alternative fuels (not just one type alone) to create cleaner fuel and more energy efficient fuel for vehicles.