Ethanol

The world's leading ethanol producer is Brazil, where billions of gallons of fuel ethanol are produced from sugar cane each year.

In the United States, the price of sugar is too high to produce ethanol economically, so other sources are used. Corn is used to produce well over 90 percent of U.S. ethanol. Most U.S. ethanol is used to make gasohol (a mixture of 90 percent unleaded gasoline and 10 percent ethanol) and other blends to meet oxygenated-gasoline requirements.

Ethanol used in these blends does not meet the federal definition of an alternative fuel. The blend burns cleaner, but it also evaporates more readily.