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."

Comments

Bah

[Golias]

No matter what independant researchers say, Ethonal is not going away any time soon. Why? I can explain in three letters:

A.

D.

M.

When the corporation who puts out the vast majority of ethanol-producing corn has members of both parties in their pocket, legislators are going to continue to preach the advantages of "clean, renewable" corn-based fuel.

(Also, they would prefer that you pay no attention to the fact that Ethanol produces less CO2, but more of other gasses, such as O3. We've got an environment to save, dammit! How dare you question the advantages of A.D.M.'s Ethanol!!!)

Efficiency is not the point !

[Arthur B.]

Convenience is. You can use clean energy to produce the ethanol, such has hydro-electrics or nuclear power but it's much harder to use it directly in a car. You can use ethanol in your car though. So throwing money in developping ethanol is not pointless because a) research will make the efficiency ratio increase b) ethanol is a convinient way to store energy for vehicles

Re:Efficiency is not the point !

[ergo98]

You can use clean energy to produce the ethanol...

You've got a great point - one of the fundamental problems we face is in battery technology, of storing and transporting energy with a decoupling between generation and consumption. Ethanol could be a fantastic battery of sorts, in the same way that hydrogen is, but compatible with current vehicles.

Of course practically most farmers are using copious amounts of oil-products to generate ethanol, but perhaps with a modernization and greening of farms, this storage technology could become more sustainable.

Re:Duh

[ScentCone]

Now, with this in mind, tell me why ethanol is needed?

Because it's a huge, politically correct opportunity to subsidize voters in agro states, and to buy off the eco-crazies with something that sounds emotionally warm and fuzzy. It's not about fuel, it's about throwing a bone, no matter how pointless, to the sustainablites while real research into actual solutions is conducted on other fronts (say, in France, believe it or not).