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What is more amazing (to me) is that such methodology is not challenged in peer-reviewed academic publications. As soon as I read Pimental’s work, I saw immediately where this claim of “ethanol consumes more BTU’s than it produces” came from. The biggest component of the energy input that Pimental has that other studies don’t is the energy to make the steel.

There are plenty of other variable factors that reasonable, informed people can debate about ethanol, but when some people in the debate keep pointing back at Pimental’s work (as the WSJ especially loves to do), it ceases to be a reasonable debate. The journalists and policy wonks who point to Pimental’s work haven’t actually *read* the study you see, they just look at the conclusions. When I point out the methodology, these people are absolutely silent - they have no coherent analysis of their own, they want to parrot someone with a PhD who has done a nice, tidy job.

NB that in the prezo from EERE that was posted, the majority of the studies show a positive energy output from Ethanol. Ever see the WSJ quote any of those studies? Me neither.

It should also be NB that Pimental’s background is in insects, not agronomy, engineering or energy. Insects. But because he has a PhD and he used to teach at Cornell (ie, an Ivy League school), he’s infallible to the east coast media.

I’m just a retired EE turned farmer, but even without a PhD, I can shred Pimental’s work with ease, it is so outlandishly in error. He also uses outdated yields, input costs, etc from the 80’s. Farmers don’t stand still, they adopt new technology relentlessly in a goal of reducing costs. Yields go up, inputs go down - that’s the meta-trend in American farming.

I’m not saying that ethanol is a cure-all; corn-based ethanol isn’t a huge energy win. It is a marginal improvement in the energy balance, and I’m being honest when I say “marginal.” The infrastructure developed for corn-based ethanol can and will be used when we develop cellulosic ethanol, which has a much better payback.

There are other biofuels which we should be investigating, such as butanol, which would remove the distribution barriers ethanol has, as well as handle most of the energy content issue. The WSJ and their ilk, however, want to pettifog and dismiss all biofuels outright as a boondoggle, rather than think in a long term about this: We need to cut loose of the noose the middle east has around our neck. We don’t need to replace the majority of oil imports to do this, since the majority of our imported oil comes from Canada. All we need to do is get rid of about 20% of our oil portfolio and we can eliminate the middle east completely. This can be done by a) increasing domestic production of oil and b) biofuels. Neither solution will do it all.

The problem is, the WSJ sees those of us who want to cut loose of middle eastern oil in the same light as people who want to build a wall on the borders: “Nativists” and so on.