If one of the two (ethanol or gasoline) uses waste heat from a powerplant to do their processing, then the numbers are all wrong and unfair again. Utilizing waste heat is almost free energy input.
Also, here’s another way to look at it. Lets say we are burning coal to produce ethanol for automotive fuel. You can say that it is stupid because making gasoline consumes far fewer units of energy. This is true, but we can’t burn coal in our cars. But we do have lots and lots of coal in this country. So even if the process is inefficient, it still makes sense in a short term crisis situation to have the capability to produce ethanol from coal and grain.
We have the ability to convert excess grain and coal into automotive fuel. Do our enemies in the middle east have the capability to convert excess oil into food? No. Therefore, we have a bit of an advantage in the event of an all out world war.
Here’s another aspect no one is thinking about. Pure ethanol as automotive fuel is superior to gasoline IF THE INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINE IS DESIGNED SPECIFICALLY FOR ETHANOL. Currently, flex fuel vehicles are optimized for gasoline with the ability to utilized ethanol if desired. They are not optimized for ethanol. Ethanol burning IC engines can withstand much higher compression ratios and thereby realize much higher efficiencies. Also, ethanol contains oxygen, which lowers the demand for oxygen during combustion and also lowers the pollutants out the exhaust pipe. The drawback to an IC engine optimized for ethanol is that it can never go back to using gasoline even temporarily. gasoline will not tollerate the high compression ratios.
Comparing energy inputs required to produce a unit of ethanol vs a unit of gasoline is not as straight forward as you think. There are complicated aspects not easily accounted for and not easily predicted.
After reading more about ethanol, I’ve changed my opinion from “it’s a stupid idea that should be banned”, to “it may have some merit in certain situations, let’s let them continue to develop and refine the process just in case, but let’s not get too carried away with implementing it just yet”.
Oh, one last thing. I think a higher demand for cropland is a good thing. It helps to slow the urban spawl. Also, a world wide increased demand for cropland is a good thing for the US because we have more of it than most everyone else.
That's an outright lie!!
Having used it and nitromethane for years racing there is nothing superior about it unless you eliminate cost and efficiency as being immaterial.
>>This is true, but we can’t burn coal in our cars.
We all the time have commentators equating transportation energy with electrical generation energy, when the two are but loosely coupled.
It’s a major problem in the public energy debate, and it has been going on for a long time, at least back to the Carter era.
“Also, ethanol contains oxygen, which lowers the demand for oxygen during combustion...”
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You’re thinking is backwards. Since oxygen is ALREADY in combination, there is less energy available in the EtOH since it is partially oxidized already. The oxygen in EtOH is a liability, not an asset.
Whether it should be used SHOULD be left entirely to the marketplace. The multi-billions and the regulations now being used to encourage its development should never have come into being, and ought to be dropped immeiately.