At work, I keep hearing that it takes more than a gallon of oil based fuel to produce a gallon of ethanol based fuel. I don't know if this is fact or fiction but FR ought to be able to dig it up. Does anyone have info on this?
If you search you will find results all over the place. I have found them as low as 40% of the energy produced must be consumed to over 100%.
However, on http://www.ethanol.org a Pro-Ethanol web site they link to a study on energy balance.
http://www.ethanol.org/pdfs/energy_balance_ethanol.pdf
It states:
Production of corn-ethanol is energy efficient, in that it yields 34 percent more energy than it takes to produce it, including growing the corn, harvesting it, transporting it, and distilling it into ethanol.