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Ethanol More Trouble Than It's Worth?
call -151 writes "Yahoo reports this story by researchers from Cornell and Berkeley who show what a number of people had suspected- it takes significantly more energy (at least 29%) more energy to produce ethanol than it yields. Since ethanol production plants don't use ethanol themselves for their own energy needs (with presumably negible delivery costs) this has been widely suspected but not so bluntly stated: "Ethanol production in the United States does not benefit the nation's energy security, its agriculture, the economy, or the environment." Ethanol producers dispute the study, predictably, which deducts the multi-billion US dollar subsidy. It's not clear how this compares with this earlier Union of Concerned Scientists article that claims that the yield from corn kernels is net 50% positive- and the UCS is usually quite unbiased on these things."
Someone needs to write this book urgently! Chapter one could talk about how clean burning Hydrogen takes enormous amounts of energy to make. Chapter 2 could be all about the wonderful idiocy that is perpetual motion. A chapter near the back could wax eloquent about how even if energy is FREE (as in beer) or clean (as in the toilet) it still causes bad things to happen when it is used. Chainsaws cut down trees - cars hit animals and people.
The flag just makes more sense than the constitution. - Judas Gutenberg
Now, with this in mind, tell me why ethanol is needed?
Because the subsidy goes to red (Republican) states, of course.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
It's simple to make, relatively inexpensive, and reasonably safe
Don't forget to mention "and has to be made at a loss, and only functions as an energy storage mechanism (as opposed to an energy source)".
The only reason why a switch to ethanol hasn't happened yet is that there is a constant argument over the issue of ethanol taking more energy to farm than it ever produces
Nope. The only reason why the switch hasn't occurred is because ethanol costs too much. We live in a market-based economy. If we had to spend 5 times as much energy to make the ethanol as it contained, but we got that energy from on-site ag-waste burning and managed to produce $1.50-per-gallon ethanol, people would flock to it.
By the way, all of the papers against ethanol were authored or coauthored by the same person: Pimental. He just keeps hashing his old, widely criticized as inaccurate data, and repeating the same calculations with it. That's why groups generally seen as relatively impartial, such as the Union of Concerned Scientists, weighed in stating that research shows it is well positive. One scientist with an occasional coresearcher does not a "generally accepted scientific viewpoint" break (it just breaks unanimity).
Not like the "positive" and "negative" terms are relevant to market adoption, as described above.
Point of interest. Offering to shoot us might not work so well as an incentive as you might imagine.
Don't forget to add that it's a convient excuse for giving farmers wellf....subsidies.
;-) to mention subsudies for OTHER energy types such as oil. This IS on-topic.
As opposed to the far-greater welfare we're giving Iraq?
As opposed the trillions spent on the 'protection' of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait?
moderator note: In a discussion of ethanol and ethanol subsudies, it is FAIR AND BALANCED