Even if we had limitless cornfields.....many analysts still say that producing ethanol creates negative net energy. That my friends, is what needs to change.

 

Many analysts say that that is false. And people need to stop reading reports from the 80s and mid 90s.

 

Well then, what's true? If it takes more energy to produce one unit of ethanol that ethanol delivers....and we need to burn 30% more of THAT ethanol compared to gasoline....then where are we going with this?

Energy independance?

I'm all ears (no pun intended), if someone can explain that to me.

 

I wonder how much of these reports are influenced by Big Oil???
We don't know, I've heard of tampering in agriculture reports to affect prices at WallStreet...so, who knows...
Either way, it cuts our dependency on foreign oil, a good thing.
It can always get more efficient later..

 

It very well may be true that it takes more energy to prodcue ethanol than what it delivers. Brazil runs almost completely on ethonal. So much that they are able to export it.

But Brazil makes it out of sugar not corn.

We are now able to make it out of corn stalks. This will help that a lot. Though no large refinerys have been able to take advantage of it.

 

I'm sure "big oil" does influence whatever it can. So does ADM.

And explain to me again, how ethanol cuts our dependancy on foreign oil, if lots of foreign oil is required to produce ethanol, and then we need to burn 1/3 more ethanol than gas?

 

Ok...

1 gallon of gas or 1.33 gallons of E85... That 1.33 gallons of E85 would be 15% gasoline, or approximately 0.2 gallons of "imported gas" as opposed to the whole 1 gallon.

 

What Charlie is trying to include is the cost associated with creating just the ethanol itself, not just the E85 blend. So yea, while you save money by only using 15% gas, you still have to somehow make the ethanol, which requires foreign oil.

 

Yeah, what I need to know is how many gallon(s) of 'imported gas' is required (in total), to make one gallon of ethanol?

 

Correct me if im wrong, but doesnt it pretty much just take energy to turn corn or whatever into ethanol? And arent a large number of our power plants coal? And if we got real serious about ethanol production, couldnt we build more nuclear/solar/wind plants to help reduce our fossil fuel consumption?

 

That's what I was thinking. Something along the lines of solar, wind, or electrically operated plants.

 

Yes. A lot of the reports just do a straight BTU comparision. It includes the BTUs used by farm equipement. And it includes the BTUs used by the refineries. Most which get thier power from coal or nuclear.

 

Note this old study here, from 1995- showing 24% net gain.
http://www.ethanol-gec.org/corn_eth.htm
The latest shows the energy balance to be higher-
http://www.agriculture.com/ag/story....&catref=ag1001

Note a couple of interesting points in the 2nd article- a sort of "outside the box" thinking on corn for ethanol. While the corn is growing, it does scrub some CO2 from the atmosphere (reduction in greenhouse gases), and the bulk of the energy put into the growth is solar (different use of it than most people thinking of fields of photovoltaics).

More information on energy balances for various fuels-
http://www.mda.state.mn.us/ethanol/balance.html

Now, keep in mind, some of this data comes from decidedly pro-ethanol sources, but I believe it to be net positive, nonetheless.

Todd

 

I won't reduce greehouse gas. Even if you made and burned pure ethanol it would be more like 0 net CO2.

 

Sorry, I meant in comparison to using Gasoline as a fuel, not that there is a net reduction in CO2 altogether.