It's a widely accepted fact that the Earth only has a limited amount of oil reserves, and that they are running out relatively quickly. While nobody really knows when they will expire, you can be sure that unless we are prepared for when it happens, they'll be some tough times ahead. It's obvious we need some kind of alternative energy. Unfortunately, with what we've developed so far, if oil were to run out tomorrow, the world would be plunged into chaos.

While there are plenty of energy sources being currently researched, one hopeful contender is ethanol. Ethanol is similar chemically to gasoline, so an ethanol based engine would give about the same horse power as a gasoline based engine. Although there are several good reasons to use ethanol, there are several drawbacks as well. In this article I'll talk about the pros and cons of using ethanol.

For many reasons, corn is the most desired crop to make ethanol from. Generally, it gives the best yield per acre. The main benefit of using ethanol is that it is renewable. That means from the same patch of dirt, you can keep growing corn year after year that can be turned into fuel for engines. That small piece of dirt can be the source of unlimited fuel.

The second benefit to using ethanol is that it is much cleaner burning that gasoline, and has virtually zero carbon emissions. That means no contribution to global warming, no greenhouse gasses, and no pollution. That we could have an unlimited source of clean energy almost seems to good to be true.

Sadly, we're not quite there yet. As it stands now, creating ethanol takes time and energy. The corn has to be planted, grown, fertilized, harvested, and converted into ethanol. For one gallon of ethanol to be created, it takes about a gallon and a quarter of gasoline. If a business operated this way, they would quickly go broke.

One more major negative is that for every acre of corn devoted to ethanol, that's an acre of corn that is not being turned into food. And with the world food supply just barely enough to meet demand, the world needs every acre it can get to grow food. Setting aside thousands of acres to grow ethanol doesn't make much economic sense at this point.

How to solve this problem? It's clear that ethanol is still in the experimental stage. Until more than a gallon of ethanol can be produced with a gallon of gasoline, or even ethanol itself, no more than a few acres should be set aside for this experimental energy. The world food demands are much more important at this time.

Farming has always been undergoing significant changes over the years to increase the amount of crops that can be grown. Modifications in planting methods, equipment and crop rotation have all played a big part in allowing a farm of finite site to continually increase the amount of food that can be produced. The latest technology, genetic engineering, is no different. Genetic engineering can make more robust crops, crops that are easier to harvest, and even food that provides much more nutritional value. The question is, are genetically altered foods good or bad? In this article I'll cover the pros and cons of each, so you'll have a better understanding.

To begin with, it's important to understand that farmers have been genetically altering foods for hundreds, if not thousands if years. Cross pollination is simply mixing two different kinds of plants together to make a new one, or to alter the original plant. The corn of today looks and tastes nothing like the wild corn that was first eaten thousands of years ago. In the past, good was changed so it would taste better, but today, we have the capability to engineer food so the nutritional content will be healthier. For example, most Americans eat a diet that includes too many carbohydrates in the from of grain based foods. This can lead to a lot of ailments, including diabetes and heart disease.

But with genetic engineering, this can be changed. The plants can be engineered so the grain based foods that are made from them have a much better mix of carbohydrates and proteins. This means less diabetes and heart disease. Another problem in modern society is plant oil. Most plant oils which are cheap and readily available contain an unhealthy mix of fatty acids. By genetically altering the plants that produce the oils, the resultant oils can have a much better blend of fatty acids, which can significantly reduce cholesterol.

Of course, genetic engineering doesn't come with drawbacks. In the past, crops were altered by certain cross breeding and pollination practices. Over time, this developed foods that were better suited for humans. For example, the corn of today is nothing like wild corn from thousands of years ago. But today, advanced technology, such as radiation, is used to genetically alter the DNA of plants. This might prove to be helpful, but there might be side effects that we aren't aware of yet.

By drastically changing any one plant, any negative effects might not make themselves pronounced for some time. This could lead to devastating side effects such as cancer or other diseases that take quite a while to fully manifest themselves. Also, any genetically altered crop that is taken up too quickly by any one farmer can have terrible economic consequences if the crop fails.

To be sure, there are, and there have been, plenty of benefits to growing genetically altered food. However, scientists must be careful not to make changes too quickly, or else unfortunate, and unintended consequences may result.

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