Nothing good about Ethanol

Roger wrote:
: What experts? Employed by whom? What are their qualifications? What
: peer-reviewed studies did they publish?

: Well, you can do a search and find a good many studies by legit?
: universities and corporations. Unfortunately the results for "Net
: energy Gain" for alcohol production vary from a negative 50% to an
: outlandish positive of several hundred percent (by a university). IOW
: if you hunt you will be able to find a study that will support just
: about any position.

Well-said. As has been said before, there are "lies, damn lies, and statistics." Depending on which
studies you want to read making various assumptions on "environmental costs," "incidental costs," and "byproduct
credits," the studies tend to ready anwhere from a 20% on the Joule fossil-fuel energy budget to a 1-4x per
Joule fossile-fuel budget. In any event, it is certainly not the magic-bullet that many people tout. In Brazil
it works well due to the relative ease of conversion sugar cane as compared to corn. Check out the papers by
Pimentel for the last 30 years. He may be at one extreme end of the spectrum (20%), but the other extreme end
(1-4x) isn't enough to devote huge resources to encourage.

-Cory


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* Cory Papenfuss, Ph.D., PPSEL-IA *
* Electrical Engineering *
* Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University *
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