Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Brief Blog exercise

David McCollum

My prospectus is about finding out whether or not ethanol is a viable alternative to gasoline for America. I have a general understanding about the pros and cons of using ethanol, but I need to find out a lot more specific information through my research. Areas I need to find specific information about include: other countries or instances where ethanol is being used, effects to the environment ethanol will have, economic effects that ethanol will have, and information specific to America with regards to using ethanol. I think the topic I am researching is not too broad or too narrow because there is a lot of information in favor of using ethanol and there is a lot of information saying that ethanol is not a good alternative. This topic covers politics, environmental issues, and economic issues. My end result to this research should give me a clear understanding as to whether or not using ethanol for fuel is a viable alternative for America.

Is Ethanol a good alternative to gasolie in America's search for alternative energy sources

Prospectus

It is a well known fact that the oil we use to fuel our cars is running out at an extreme rate, and that America needs to find an alternative energy source to fuel our cars. A recent alternative that is very popular is using ethanol made from corn to fuel our cars. Using a renewable resource like corn to fuel our cars sounds like a brilliant idea since it would lessen our reliability on countries in the Middle East for oil, and it would give us an alternative when fossil fuels run out. However, a closer look at this subject reveals that using ethanol to fuel our cars is not as good as it sounds. Even though corn and ethanol are not fossil fuels, the machinery made to grow the corn and then turn it into ethanol burn fossil fuels. Also, the increase in demand for corn this is causing is severely increasing the price of corn. America is also using a large portion of it’s corn crop for ethanol. By conducting further research on this topic, I hope to come to a conclusion as to whether or not using ethanol is a viable alternative in America’s search for different ways to fuel our automobiles. Methods used to gather information on this subject will include magazine articles, scholarly journals, and editorials.

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

First Blog Post

This is my first blog post, enjoy

-David McCollum