Henry Ford first suggested running cars on ethanol from corn, but it took the oil shortages of the seventies and the environmental problems of the eighties to turn ethanol into the product behind one of every ten gallons of motor fuel America uses.
Ethanol is made by fermenting sugars produced from corn starch.
Many corn refining factories produce both ethanol and other corn products like starches and sweeteners so that capital and manufacturing costs can be kept as low as possible. While they are making ethanol, corn refiners also produce valuable coproducts such as corn oil and corn gluten feed. Ethanol plays three major roles in today's economy and environment. First, it replaces about a billion dollars of imported oil with a secure, domestic fuel. Second, it is an important component of gasoline reformulated to reduce pollution in cities which are not achieving air quality standards mandated by the Clean Air Act.