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The Strange Energy Budget of Ethanol Production

Posted by timothy on from the subsidy-heaven dept.

joeflies writes "The San Francisco Chronicle published an article regarding research on how much fuel is required to make Ethanol. The results indicate that it make take 6 times more energy than the end product delivers."

4 of 200 comments (clear)

  1. comparisons? by TheClam · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Compare this to gasoline and hydrogen and you've got yourself a real article.

  2. This is flawed. by EvilMagnus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Taking grain apart, fermenting it, distilling it and extruding it uses a lot of fossil energy," he said. "We are grasping at the solution that is by far the least efficient.".

    He ignores the fact that, if we wanted to, we *could* arrange the production chain so that it was not dependent on fossil fuel. You could build your farming and fermentation facilities to use solar or hydro power, for example.

    Sure, it's fossil-intensive *now*. But it's also not a major energy source yet. If we needed to we could clean up the energy chain - there's no part of the process that requires fossil fuel sources.

    --
    -EvilMagnus
    1. Re:This is flawed. by WolfWithoutAClause · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Nah. The real point behind all this is that in USA they make ethanol from corn, because they grow a lot of corn, and powerful lobbies have introduced a huge subsidy to use that source of ethanol to try to keep the cheap biofuel from Brazil off the market.

      Of course the Brazilian biofuel comes from sugar beat and so forth, which actually is somewhat efficient and gives a net energy win; which is why Brazil have been able to run lots of their cars on it for quite a while now.

      So what this paper is really saying is not that biofuel is a waste of time, but that 'The American Government are morons' with their stupid corn-based ethanol subsidy. But you knew that already, unless you're a corn farmer.

      --

      -WolfWithoutAClause

      "Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"
  3. Re:not particularly relevant... by Mr.Sharpy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    sure, as long as there's oil, ethanol doesn't really look efficient or affordable except as a fuel oxygenator. but if the oil reserves were to run out sometime soon, ethanol could be poured into most of our existing infrastructure and ease the transition. that's why it's important -- not because it's inherently superior to petroleum, but because it can be manufactured (from scratch) much more quickly.

    Did you even read the article? You're missing the entire point! If the oil reserves run out you won't be able to get any ethanol to pour in your car either! Corn based ethanol requires far more energy in its production than it is capable of producing itself, almost all of which comes from fossil fuels. In fact, according to this article producing one unit of energy in ethanol requires 2.3 units of energy to produce. That's gotta come from somewhere, and right now its going to be fossil fuels.

    The bottom line is that ethanol programs are, right now, nothing more than another farm subsidy. The politics such programs are beyond the scope of this article, but suffice it to say that touting ethanol as the solution to our energy problems is at best disingenuous, dishonest, and a potentially disasterous diversion from the real technologies we are going to need to maintain our current life styles in the future.