By the first of next year, the Foothill-De Anza district’s order of Flex-fuel buses will arrive for off campus services including transporting sports teams. Flex-fuel vehicles can use either gasoline or pure ethanol. But just because vehicles like these will survive the impending oil crisis, we still have to consider where our fuel comes from.
Ethanol is mainly produced from the United States’ food stock, largely based in California and the Midwest. Potatoes, corn, cassava sugarcane and even types of grass are all capable of producing Ethyl alcohol, which is then mixed with gasoline in various proportions. As the green movement gains momentum worldwide, so does the demand for alternative fuels like ethanol as well as land to cultivate these crops and vehicles capable of running on pure ethanol. The cost of the land will be passed down to the consumers, making both food and fuel more expensive. Research at Stanford University’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering has shown ethanol to be a more potent pollutant than gasoline. According to professor Mark Jacobson, author of a Stanford University study on ethanol, when ethanol is burned it releases ozone. Ozone is safe when it is high up in the atmosphere, but at lower levels it is corrosive to rubber, statues and lung tissue, causing asthma.
Also, if government and business leaders get too heavily into ethanol, the strain on the limited availability of land on planet Earth might be cause for another world war. In wealthy countries, such as the United States, the extra cost will mean a moderate adjustment in lifestyle; while in less wealthy countries such as Mexico and Mozambique, it means a potential oil crisis could create a food crisis.
I support alternative fuels, but I believe the key to this complicated issue is diversity.
If my tax dollars are going to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and Area 51 and the Pentagon for ungodly technology of destruction, can I please have my hydrogen fuel cell for cheap? And when the oil dries up, I personally do not want to be fighting wars over corn. But above all, we all need to be weary of sneaky legislation that hinders the progress of the green movement, such as Proposition 23 (which would suspend implementation of air pollution control law AB32 if it passes) on this year’s midterm ballot. Policy and regulation are the cornerstones in the foundation of widespread standards for mainstream society. Ignorance and greed are the challenges this movement faces, and qualities we must overcome as a species.
