Corn Based Ethanol Essay

524 Words3 Pages

Ethanol made from a corn base is bad, because ethanol contributes to global warming, it takes enormous amounts of corn and land to create, it’s a corrosive substance, it can melt steel, and it’s not cost effective. Several people tend to think corn based ethanol is better for their car, and gets them better gas milage. These people are unfortunately wrong. Among some of the worst effects caused from using corn based ethanol is that, ethanol results to increased carbon emissions of up to 20%, thus, making it a significant contributor to global warming.The potential future effects of global climate change include more frequent wildfires, longer periods of drought in some regions and an increase in the number, duration, and intensity of tropical …show more content…

Since you need enormous amounts of this corn to produce ethanol, a lot of land is used to grow these large amounts of corn. This means wheat and other grains’ production is decreased, It creates a dead zone in mexico, and destroys animal habitats. More than 90 million acres of land are planted to produce corn, with the majority of the crop grown in the Heartland region. This means land that could be used to produce other grains is being used to produced this 90 million acres of corn. The Gulf of Mexico has a seasonal hypoxic zone ( An excessive nutrient pollution from human activities coupled with other factors that deplete the oxygen required to support most marine life in bottom and near-bottom water.) that forms every year in late summer. This hypoxic zone is caused from Global Warming, which is partly caused by corn ethanol. Only around 26% of corn is left over after the biofuel and animal feed is taken away. The majority of that is exported while about 11% is used for human consumption in the U.S. This means we use way too much of our corn on fuel, and not for the consumption of our people and animals. Today, there is increasing pressure to redevelop conservation lands for high-priced food and biofuel crops, but this is terrible for the animals. Animals need their ecosystems to survive, and destroying ecosystems means we’re putting animals at risk for