Using corn-based ethanol? Don't be selfish toward the environment... better stick with fossil fuels

Fine, true, neither one nor the other, but you’ll be interested to know that a study has just revealed that corn-based ethanol generates more pollution across its whole production and use than fossil fuels of the old-fashioned kind.

It’s no surprise. In fact, it’s as old as the fact that governments know how to pull the wool over the majority’s eyes, doing what they want without breaking a sweat over macroeconomic matters. Recently the United States promised in the name of the environment (read: its own vision of the environment) to support alternatives to fossil fuels, such as ethanol, made from corn in this case. From a country that gives humanitarian aid to the Third World according to its surplus, nothing radically different could be expected in this case. I’d like to know, though, what kind of corn and what part of its production is meant for this, (is it also the surplus, or would it be better to be more drastic and keep raising the price of all its food derivatives?).

In any case, a new report in the journal Science concludes that biofuels could in fact produce more greenhouse gas emissions than fossil fuels, if every production step is counted. In fact, the study considers that corn-based ethanol would double greenhouse gas emissions over the next 30 years.

As simple as this: you grow corn, taking over land from plants that help filter polluting gases (pollutes), you use chemicals to fertilise the harvest (pollutes), you use machinery to plant, maintain and harvest the crop (pollutes), and so on until the moment the hose at a service station puts the fuel in question into your car’s tank.

Beating around the bush so that the big oil companies can keep cutting the black gold cake in their favour for a few more years is obvious to everyone, but we must dare to think for ourselves so that others don’t do it for us, and to bet more firmly on those truly viable alternatives. I remind you that these same multinational giants have heavy investments in research projects on fuels such as hydrogen, which today is one of the best paths to follow according to experts on the subject.

Via | Leftlane news