Posted on 03/15/2010 12:35:16 PM PDT by Shellybenoit
Ethanol is a controversial issue. To some the use of corn to make fuel is causing food shortages and driving up to cost of food. Here is a little secret. It would be much more efficient to use sugar cane to make ethanol than corn. Corn Ethanol generates 2x the energy than it takes to produce it. Sugar Cane Ethanol generates 8x the energy than it takes to produce it. So why are we using Corn? Well Sugar Cane comes from other countries, and most of our Corn based Ethanol comes from Illinois conglomerate Archer Daniels Midland. During the Campaign, the NY Times reported:
Obama's lead advisor on energy and environmental issues, Jason Grumet, came to the campaign from the National Commission on Energy Policy, a bipartisan initiative associated with Daschle and Bob Dole, the Kansas Republican who is also a former Senate majority leader and a big ethanol backer who had close ties to the agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland.
Not long after arriving in the Senate, Obama himself briefly provoked a controversy by flying at subsidized rates on corporate airplanes, including twice on jets owned by Archer Daniels Midland, which is the nation's largest ethanol producer and is based in his home state.
Now there is another "bump" in the corn ethanol road. A new analysis (embedded below) analyzes greenhouse gas release for maize ethanol produced in the United States. The study shows that at the very least Corn based ethanol does not reduce green house and it may very well increase green house emissions.
(Excerpt) Read more at yidwithlid.blogspot.com ...
Wrong!!!!! Corn ethanol generates 2x less energy than it takes to produce it. Not sure what the figure is for sugar cane...but both are net losers.
Burning ethanol for fuel emits twice the CO2 as its gasoline equivalent.
Two... you have to burn some fuel...usually natural gas to create the heat to generate, distill, and ship the ethanol from places that create it.
In 2009, there were 160 American producers of fuel grade ethanol, the largest of which produced 11% of the total volume. ADM, by the way, wasn't the largest; Poet Biorefining was, while Valero Energy was third.
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