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Pimental study was picked out of about 10 studys of ethanol. His calculations?hehe were the lowest of the 10 studys. So basing everything about ethanol on the lowest calculations of 10 studys could perhaps mean that Pimental is off by 90%. And his synopsis of the study he set out to prove was that ethanol was not feasable. So being a biased researcher, naturally his summary will support his theory.

Why should anyone believe 10% of the people are the only ones who are right and everyone else is stupid?

Pimentel is full of crap on this issue. This reasoning in this 2001 article Occupied keeps posting is bogus. It's full of holes and Occupied knows it. For instance, Pimentel says, "The average U.S. automobile, traveling 10,000 miles a year on pure ethanol (not a gasoline-ethanol mix), would need about 852 gallons of the corn-based fuel. This would take 11 acres to grow, based on net ethanol production." He also says that each acre of corn will produce 328 gallons of ethanol. Do the math. 852 divided by 328 comes to about 2.6 acres, not eleven. And most of the rest of the crap he writes is wrong too. His bushel per acre corn yield numbers he uses are lower than the real yields. The gallons per bushel yield numbers he's using are lower than actual gallons per bushel yields. He talks about "three distillation" processes being needed to produce ethanol in many cases when in fact modern stills can produce high test ethanol on the first run. He talks about all these irrigation problems when in fact an awful lot of the corn grown as ethanol feedstock requires little or no irrigation. Dig deeper in his studies and you'll find all sorts or errors and false assumptions. His study is nothing but garbage in garbage out.

Pimentel has also done similar studies on other fuels like biosiesel and gasoline. Do you know what he finds for gasoline? He finds that it is a net energy loser too. According to him it takes about 10% more energy to make gasoline than it produces. In his studies this pinhead even adds in things like the energy used to produce a tractor that will work the farm, even though the farmer would need that tractor anyway, and he includes as energy used the calories farm workers burn while working. Huh? I'm wondering why he doesn't include as energy used the calories workers burned while manufacturing the tractor and the calories burned by those who produced the food that guys who made the tractor ate and the energy expended by the car they drove to work at the tractor factory and the food the people who made their cars ate and so on. This guy is a nut. He expends too much energy coming out with crap studies and not enough checking his facts.