ETernally EThanol (Hopefully) 希望的燃料--乙醇

Cars are dangerous. Sort of.

You hear about road accidents. Or maybe a man who rammed his car into a pole.

But that is not the ‘dangerous’ I’m talking about. No.

I’m talking about gasoline. The petrol we used in our cars to keep them moving. So what’s so dangerous about gasoline?

Well, for one thing, gasoline is dangerous to the environment indirectly. Gasoline produces greenhouse gases, and this leads to global warming. But of course, we still have to depend on gasoline. If not, then how are our cars going to move?

I don’t think you’re going to want to push your car with your bare hands. Or employ a horse to pull your car.

I don’t think so. We want our cars to be moved by an energy source (which gasoline produces).

So is there an alternative to gasoline?

Ok. Don’t celebrate yet. But there’s some GOOD news here!

The answer is ….. ethanol!!!! Yes. We can actually use ethanol as an alternative fuel because it produces cleaner emissions than your typical gasoline.

But first, what is ethanol? Ok, ethanol is actually an alcohol-based fuel, which is derived from crops such as corn and sugarcane. There are few types of ethanol, such as E85 and E10.

E85 ethanol consists of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline. E10 is a blend of 10 percent ethanol and 90 percent gasoline.

So if you like blend ethanol with gasoline, emissions produced are cleaner (as ethanol percentage increases, that is).

But there’s a drawback to ethanol. We know that ethanol is a contributory factor to cleaner emissions, but some BAD news too!

Currently, there are more gasoline fuel stations than ethanol stations! And to accommodate the consumption of ethanol, a whole pipeline network would have to be built for ethanol itself!!! That would consume a LOT of money, time, and energy!

Even large-scale bio-refineries have to be constructed if we’re to completely switch to ethanol fuels! And do you know that ethanol is more EXPENSIVE that gasoline? You also get fewer miles with ethanol than with gasoline.

Sigh. But hopefully one day, the whole world will be AWARE of global environmental concerns and support the use of ethanol!

Don’t we ALL want a better world? Really.

To learn about recent issues concerning ethanol as an alternative fuel, read this piece of interesting news at http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090503/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_ethanol_climate;_ylt=Auj1MUubEbob7yNX9pUJsHMPLBIF


汽车多少是有点危险的。

你有听说过道路交通事故吧。或许有人就驾着汽车撞向柱子。

但是，这并不是我想谈论的“危险”事件。

我说的是汽油。我们使用的汽油可以让汽车行驶。那么，汽油会有什么危险呢？

我们要记住一点，汽油会对环境造成间接的危险。汽油产生能引起温室效应的气体，这会导致全球暖化。当然，我们仍然需要汽油。如果没有汽油，我们的汽车如何行驶？

我不认为你会想要用双手来推动汽车，或雇用马来拉车。

我不这么认为。我们希望汽车可以藉由能源来发动（所以就生产出汽油）。

那么，是否有汽油的替代品？

大家先不要庆祝。不过已经有一些好消息了！

答案就是......乙醇！是的。实际上我们可以使用乙醇作为替代燃料，因为它能产生比一般汽油更不受污染的排放量。

但是首先，你知道什么是乙醇吗？乙醇是一种酒精燃料，它来自农作物如玉米和甘蔗。它可分为几种类型的酒精，如E85和E10。

E85乙醇燃料含有百分之八十五的乙醇和百分之十五的汽油。E10乙醇燃料则混合了百分之十的乙醇和百分之九十的汽油。

因此，如果你喜欢将乙醇和汽油混合在一起，且乙醇的比例增加时，排放量会更不受污染。

但是乙醇有一个缺点。我们知道乙醇能产生较不受污染的排放量，它在这方面具有有利的因素，但也有一些不好的消息！

目前，汽油加油站比乙醇燃料站多！乙醇需要建立整个输油管系统，才有能力供应乙醇燃料的消费！这就需要花费大量的金钱、时间和能量！

如果我们要完全将汽油转换成乙醇燃料，甚至需要建造大规模的生物炼油厂！你知道乙醇比汽油还昂贵吗？而且使用乙醇发动汽车所行驶的路程还比使用汽油的来得少。

希望有一天，全世界都能知道整个环境关注的问题，并支持乙醇的使用！

我们不是都希望能真正拥有一个更美好的世界吗？

想了解近期有关乙醇作为替代燃料的事件，可以阅读以下这则有趣的新闻：http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090503/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_ethanol_climate;_ylt=Auj1MUubEbob7yNX9pUJsHMPLBIF