[OneWingedShark]

>Pimmental considers all of the following to be “energy inputs” to ethanol production:
>
>- fuel in the machines used to plant, grow and harvest the crop

Actually THAT one *IS* a valid consideration.

[Mr. Lucky]

The problem with Pimental's input calculation s are that his assumption with regard to farming are so off base. For instance, he assumes that all corn is irrigated and all farmers use a moldboard plow. In fact, very little #2 dent corn is irrigated and almost nobody uses a moldboard. Pimental assumes that an average acre of corn will yield 110 bushels per year per acre, while last year (a drought year, by the way) the US average was 152+ bushels per acre.

While Pimental estimated that 131,017 btu's per gallon were consumed, and 21,500 of those were chargeable to co-products) the USDA reports that the consensus from scientific literature is 79,503 btu's by the wet milling method (with 33,503 btu's chargeable to co-products) and 74,447 by the dry milling process (with 28,415 btu's chargeable to co-products).