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Posted by George in MIchigan [174.125.88.23] on Tuesday, July 27, 2010 at 22:52:12 :
In Reply to: ethanol cheaper than gasoline posted by clueless [201.202.22.114] on Monday, July 26, 2010 at 19:37:01 :
Alcohol is a general term for chemicals of a certain class containing the OH group. Ethanol, aka ethyl alcohol, is one member of that class. It has 2 carbon atoms, one OH group and 5 other hydrogen atoms. Methanol, or methy alcohol, has only one carbon atom, one OH group and 3 other hydrogen atoms. There are alcohols with more carbon atoms also, like isopropanol which is used in rubbing alcohol.
Ethanol (ethyl alcohol) is the alcohol in beer, whisky etc. This is commonly just called "alcohol".
I won't get too involved in the other comments below, but I would point out that ethanol production is not that scaleable either...growing that much corn will take significant farmland or forest land and therefore drive up the price of other products, and cutting down the forests is sort of like shooting yourself in the foot....those forests are what we need to soak up the carbon dioxide.
I think wind and solar energy will become much more economical as our technology improves, and by linking them with a natural gas plant, the irregular character of these sources can be covered. Natural gas releases much less carbon dioxide than coal because it contains 4 hydrogen atoms which when burned produce heat and water, not heat and carbon dioxide like coal does.
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