Bell Performance Blog

Your Gas Could Feed More Than 20 People

Written by Bell Performance | Oct 9 2012

We came across an interesting article on VPR News talking about how the ethanol in your gas tank is enough to feed 22 people. Read the article for yourself here:

http://www.vpr.net/npr/162127460/


Researchers at the Complex Sciences Institute looked at the caloric value that the ethanol in a typical tank of gas contains.  They also analyzed the food and supply chain by thinking in terms of what could have been done with the corn, foodwise, that went instead to growing the fuel in your tank. If not being distilled into alcohol, the corn would be going to produce food components like corn syrup and to feed animals to produce meat, poultry, eggs and dairy products.  The diversion of corn from food to fuel is one thing that has ethanol free gas advocates up in arms.

After crunching the numbers, the researchers concluded that the amount of ethanol contained in the gas tank of the average vehicle in this country represents enough food to feed 22 people for a single day.  That's food for thought.