Posted on 07/20/2005 2:45:34 PM PDT by Fog Nozzle
Exerpt From The Editorial:
Two researchers who concluded it takes more energy to make ethanol than the corn-based fuel contains are guilty of "garbage in, garbage out." Their research is misleading at best, dishonest at worst.
David Pimental of Cornell University and Tad Patzek of Berkeley have done little more than recycle warmed over criticism of ethanol, most of which has been discredited by several other university and USDA studies. While Pimental and Patzek claim it takes 29 percent more fossil energy to produce a gallon of ethanol than the amount of fuel the process produces, more credible studies found ethanol delivers up to 60 percent more energy than the amount used in production.
It's probably no coincidence that Pimental and Patzek would come to their anti-ethanol findings. Both have ties to the oil industry. (See Jocie Iszler's commentary on this page.) Pimental in particular has a record of trying to discredit ethanol production, despite overwhelming evidence that it's a net energy plus for the nation.
At a time when millions of American consumers are urging their lawmakers to bolster the use of homegrown renewable fuels, researchers David Pimentel and Tad Patzek remain firmly entrenched in the big oil rut. Why does the Associated Press continue to lend credibility to the pair's ethanol energy balance research when it has been disproven time and time again?
Excerpt from Mark Johnson's most recent AP article reports on the recent work (regurgitation of 25-year-old data) of Pimentel (an entomologist with ties to the petroleum industry) and Patzek (a former Shell Oil employee) as if it is the gospel truth. Iszler is executive director of the N.D. Corn Council.
(Excerpt) Read more at in-forum.com ...
Just sayin'...
The only civilized way to burn ethanol is in one's liver.
Doh! Hit Post instead of Preview. The last paragraphs should have looked like this:
Excerpt from Ms Iszler's commentary:
At a time when millions of American consumers are urging their lawmakers to bolster the use of homegrown renewable fuels, researchers David Pimentel and Tad Patzek remain firmly entrenched in the big oil rut. Why does the Associated Press continue to lend credibility to the pair's ethanol energy balance research when it has been disproven time and time again?
Mark Johnson's most recent AP article reports on the recent work (regurgitation of 25-year-old data) of Pimentel (an entomologist with ties to the petroleum industry) and Patzek (a former Shell Oil employee) as if it is the gospel truth.
(Iszler is executive director of the N.D. Corn Council.)
Probably due to the market price for corn. Just a guess.
Ethanol can be cheaper than gasoline. The problem is that most people are using ethanol as a 10-percent additive, which actually makes it more expensive. As an 85-percent fuel mixture, it's actually cheaper than 87 octane, but only certain "flexible-fuel" vehicles can use it. And haven't they been making ethanol out of corn in the form of corn whiskey for centuries now?
My thermodynamics teacher back in 1992 spoke about ethanol. His points were that ethanol produces substantially less energy per gallon than gas and actually pollutes more. This does not disregard the fact that corn absorbs CO2. The point was that it produced more NOx pollutants than gasoline because of the chemical reactions. With all of that said, I still would rather see us running on home grown corn than the @#$%^&* arab oil even if it was less efficient. I am sure the cost would go down once there was competition.
Also, a hybrid running off pure alcohol and with variable displacement would have plenty of power and decent efficiency.
The truth is a gallon of ethanol contains at least 67 percent more energy than it takes to produce, according to the USDA.
If I understand this, he's claiming that if it takes the energy of one gallon of ethanol to make 1.6 gallons of ethanol. Is that just for fermenting and distilling or is he also including fertilizers, farming, and shipping the corn to the "Big Still"?
It would be interesting to see how much corn it takes to make that 1.6 gallons of ethanol (netting 0.6 after the energy used to create it is accounted for) and how much that corn would cost.
Great graphic, I've stolen it for my collection.
>> The truth is a gallon of ethanol contains at least 67 percent more energy than it takes to produce, according to the USDA
Not really. The sun shines on the corn plants to make the sugar in the seeds. Thus the sun provides all of the energy. The 60 percent is just the how much energy you have left over after converting from one chemical fuel (sugar) to another (alcohol).
Somewhere in the Pimental/Patzek report was the comment to the effect that all the ethanol provided by corn would supply less than a day's energy needs of the U.S.
Cornell and Berkeley? The University of the City of Evil and the Berkeley Institute of Acid Hallucinations produced the report? This is very confusing, unless they collaborated on something they thought would help doom the nation...
Maybe they were drinking the stuff.
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