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TriShield @ Feb 21st 2008 8:21PM
It's not just the issue raised in this study, but it also takes more energy to create ethanol than it actually yields for use. It is easily one of the worst government subsidy bandwagons to come along and one we're going ot pay for later.
KA @ Feb 22nd 2008 1:10AM
Yes yes yes. I don't know why people have trouble understanding this. Energy out < energy in, and therefore it's wasteful (and worse) for the environment.
Cellulose ethanol suffers the same fate; besides, it's just another "promising technology" that is nowhere near maturity on the scale that we need.
Cervus @ Feb 21st 2008 8:40PM
Actually, the energy return on corn ethanol is marginally positive. We get 1.3 units back for every unit of energy we put into it. That is still a very poor energy return, but it's not true that it's in the negative.
CEMan @ Feb 21st 2008 8:53PM
Sadly, as this is just the latest iteration of decades of fram subsidies, we have been paying for years.
Temple @ Feb 21st 2008 11:44PM
Not only is ethanol marginally positive, but the metrics of measuring the input is also skewed. In most cases, the input measure to grow ethanol is measured directly against the BTU of an equivalent amount of petroleum.
The input is measured from everything from the diesel fuel used to plow the fields to the fuel used by sixteen wheelers to transport corn to the fermentation factory. That is measured directly against the straight caloric energy content in petroleum fuel. However, this disregards the fact that petrol also takes an amazing amount of energy to expunge from the soil, especially being that this oil are in places that are difficult to get to (geographically and politically). Hence, the direct comparisons between ethanol and oil and the energy it takes to deliver to the consumer is an incomplete picture.
Phil @ Feb 24th 2008 2:13PM
The person who said the ethanol return on fossil fuel is ~1.3 is right, but even if it was 1.0 it would still make sense. We convert coal to electricity at about 0.7 all the time...why? because we can't burn coal in our toaster oven. We also can't burn natural gas in the autos we own, which is the main fossil fuel used for ethanol. NG is also domestic energy (lessens oil dependence), and relatively clean burning...think about it.