As you’d probably expect, people are looking for ways to avoid paying the high gas prices. In fact, you could probably find a direct correlation between the rising gas prices and the use of ethanol in the last year.
That’s exactly what’s happening in the United States. Ethanol sales are drastically increasing they will continue to increase as long as gas is around $4 a gallon or more. In 2006, drivers guzzled up about 5 billion gallons of ethanol for their vehicles. But that number increased to 6.5 billion gallons in 2007. That’s an increase of about 30 percent if my math is correct!
But that doesn’t mean everything is peachy in the world, either. The 6.5 billion gallons of ethanol used in 2007 accounts for nearly 25 percent of corn production. That causes the price of corn to increase, too. That’s one of the reasons that the prices of many foods have increased in recent months.
Many automotive websites like Kicking Tires have written about ethanol and whether it’s a viable source of alternative fuel. And now that food prices are going up, ethanol isn’t looking like the ideal option anymore. In addition to increased food prices, though, ethanol doesn’t really save drivers money either. You might be paying $3 a gallon for ethanol, but it burns less efficiently so you need to buy it more often. The lower efficiency can make ethanol cost just as much if not more than a regular gallon of gas right now.
But, of course, the choice is yours. You can get a car from your local Pontiac dealer and get a car that runs on straight gasoline or ethanol depending on your preferences. With today’s fuel-efficient standards and other technologies, a tank of gas lasts much longer than it ever did before.
