Biofuels in Las Vegas

First of all, I would like to say Happy Fathers Day to all of you dads out there. This world wouldn’t be the same without you. Today, I am going to take a wee bit of a look at the pros and cons of biofuels. First, we need a definition and a commonly heard example of a biofuel. According to wikipedia, a biofuel is a fuel derived from life, typically plant-life, in which has recently died as opposed to a plant that has died thousands, if not millions of years ago. The most common example typically seen in the news is ethanol, usually derived from corn. There are a few pros and cons of biofuels. For the immediate future, biofuels are a necessity. There are many reasons in which the price of a barrel of oil (and, as a direct consequence, gasoline) has increased from about 25 American dollars per barrel to over 130 American dollars per barrel. One of those reasons is the drastic decrease in the amount of unrefined oil fields in the world. There is no immediate risk of running out of oil, but it will come soon. Also, the ability to tap oil due to low oil fields is becoming much more difficult. Therefore, the price of tapping that oil in and of itself is going up, thereby increasing the price of a barrel of oil globally. Another reason has to do with the waning ability to refine oil, especially locally in the United States. Before Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, a good solid half of the refineries in the U.S.A. was in that area, particularly the Texas region of that coast. Hurricane Katrina leveled those refineries, thereby decreasing our ability to refine oil, increasing our need to import refined oil, and increasing the cost America spends on oil drastically. So, on those counts, one would have to deduce that we, as Americans, have to find a way to reduce, if not eliminate, our dependence of foreign sources of fuel. At this point, the best way to do so as far as motorized vehicles is biofuels such as ethanol. Because, let’s face it, our Alaskan oil field won’t hold us for as long as we’d like. However, I am of the opinion that we also need to find a way to eliminate hydrocarbon-based fuels, because that is, in fact, what biofuel is; hydrocarbon-based fuel. It will still wreck havoc on our planet in much the same way gasoline is right now. So, not only do we have to find an internal source of fuel, but we also need to find one that doesn’t hinder the planet. That, though, is for another post. So, the way I see it, biofuels are great for our short term problems, but for the long term it is just as bad as gasoline. Take that as you will. -[alpha]{BETA}[delta]