Will the people who taught how great ethanol is every tell the entire truth about it?

Question

Here is a little comparison of the energy inputs in producing ethanol and in producing gasoline. Obviously, you expend some energy. You don't get all the energy from the oil in your gas tank. You expend some of that in drilling it, in pumping it, transporting it, refining it and hauling it to the service station, and so forth. So you use 1.23 million Btu's to get 1 million Btu's.

Well, what is the story with corn? Now, you have a lot of free energy with corn. You have the solar energy, the photosynthesis that makes the corn grow. And this is about as good as it is going to get. To get 1 million Btu's of energy out of corn, you are going to have to spend about three-fourths of a million Btus in growing the corn, harvesting it, processing the ethanol, and so forth.

Down at the bottom here is a very interesting pie chart, and it shows something that very few people know, and that is that almost half the energy that goes into producing corn comes from nitrogen fertilizer, which is now made from natural gas. So this is a fossil fuel input. This is all fossil fuel input, by the way.

You just go around this little pie here and you are talking about mining the potash, and mining the phosphate, and mining the lime that makes the soil sweeter so that the nutrients can be absorbed. The diesel fuel in the tractor, the gasoline, the liquid propane gas, the electricity you use is produced by

fossil fuels. The natural gas you use for drying your crops, for instance, the custom work, the guy you hire to come.

And then all of the chemicals, something that we rarely, rarely reflect on. Gas and oil are huge feedstocks for a very important petrochemical industry. Most of our insecticides, most of our herbicides and so forth are made from gas and oil. And this is the contribution they make to growing corn. It is really, really quite large there, isn't it?

I have been told that 13 percent of our corn crop would displace 2 percent of our gasoline. But the only fair way to look at the contribution ethanol can make is to grow corn with energy from corn, and you can do that. But if you grow corn with energy from corn, to get a bushel of corn to use here, you have to use three bushels of corn. Remember, the 750,000 Btu inputs to get a million? You need three bushels going in to get one out, which means that it is one to four. You only get a fourth of it out, which means that you are going to have to use 52 percent of your corn crop to displace just 2 percent of our gasoline.

So when you are hearing the euphemistic projections of how much of our gasoline we are going to displace with ethanol, just remember these numbers.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?r110:103:./temp/~r110AeNr4Y:e20222:

Answer 1

That sure seems like a waste of energy, especially when there are starving peopel throughout the world

Answer 2

My father is a brilliant man and felt called into the ministry when he was 17. I have never known such a humble man, who by the world's standards had little reason to be humble. Ironically, he made more money at Minneapolis Honeywell, while in college, than he has probably made since as a minister (comparative to the times). He was always a great provider, which meant he always worked second jobs and we didn't get to see him enough. I was often jealous of the church people who could get him there at the drop of the hat! He was a faithful minister for 40 years. But he treated his two daughters the same way as his three sons: We were all pushed to do our best in school and we could all do anything we wanted to do, that we felt God wanted us to do. It wasn't until I got out of high school that some dumb redneck told me girls couldn't be president. LOL Anyway, the best lesson? Hmmm, there have been many and hopefully, they will continue for many more years. Alas, he never was a plumber or mechanic and I wish I knew how to do those things. But I've built some stuff.

Answer 3

Ethanol will never be more than a small part of the solution, but you're absolutely right that corn-based ethanol is pretty much worthless. However, there are other raw materials (sugarcane in tropical regions, switch grass elsewhere) that produces a much better input-output ratio.

I think it's pretty clear that the reason people are pushing corn so heavily is because of huge industrial agribusiness (and corresponding lobbying) that surrounds the growing of corn.

Answer 4

Very well stated. I read about this years ago. It is ridiculous, and short sighted to think that ethanol is the answer. I think you're going to get more of the rosy picture scenario, about becoming more self sufficient for our energy concerns. As you see in the link provided. I believe that the ethanol industry will continue to grow, with the introduction of E85, and E95.

I read a news story yesterday, that our use of corn for ethanol production in the USA is driving up the cost of tortilla's in Mexico.

Go figure.

Answer 5

What is needed is needed to answer your question is a site specific closed loop field demonstration. If you hook up the output (ethanol) back to the input (fuel driven nitrogen fertilizer production, power for field equipment, carbohydrate based ag chemical production, seed production, etc.), will it run, yes or no. Same acreage, sunlight and rain. No irrigation. Enough stover going back into the ground to maintain soil carbon levels. No net depletion of other soil constituents. Will it run sustainably on this basis? Yes, no, or close enough to be encouraging: we need to know.

Notice that, in this scenario, energy prices, and government farm payments have no influence on the outcome. My answer involves conducting a simple, self contained, energy balance test.

Answer 6

Thank you. Yes I knew that as a fuel ethanol was sadly lacking. But what is further not faced is that even if gasoline were replaced with a non oil based fuel it would do little or nothing to reduce our dependence on oil. It is so extensively used in manufacturing that almost every thing in reach of a person at any given time is made from an oil derivative in part or in whole.

Answer 7

Yes we realize that it basically takes as much energy input to make ethanol as you get out of it.

However, our government is also paying a but load of farmers not to produce anything to keep the prices of the food profitable for the farmers.

This is a way to increase demand for corn, effectively putting more farmers to work and eliminating the socialistic farmers subsidies.

Furthermore it keeps American dollars in America rather than sending them to nations that are sponsors of terrorism.

Answer 8

I never guessed that ethanol is the answer to everything, nor do I necessarily want the government to subsidize it. But it is a step in the right direction, and I think it is too early to just get rid of it all together...and you forgot to mention the 'smug' emissions...lol

Answer 9

Sure seems to work for Brazil.

And I'm willing to look beyond the number because of the notion that I'd rather spend the energy required rather than give my $ to OPEC.

Answer 10

Wanna know a plus about ethenol... It gives Americans jobs instead of people who hate our country.