I’ve previously expressed some skepticism about the role ethanol is being set up to play in the hoped-for transition away from our overreliance on oil. This post at gimme-five.com shows that someone else hasn’t drunk the Kool-Aid yet:
- Ethanol has a negative energy balance. Ethanol from corn, switchgrass, and wood biomass requires 29%, 50%, and 57% more energy, respectively, to create the ethanol than the energy contained within the fuel.
- Because ethanol production requires a significant amount of energy, and most energy in the US is produced from coal, the small reduction in CO2 and other polluting emissions from burning ethanol versus gasoline will be more than offset by the power needed to produce the ethanol.
- Ethanol crops have a notoriously low energy yield per hectare. Thus, it requires a large amount of land to produce a meaningful amount of ethanol. Last year, 20% of the total corn crop was used to produce ethanol, and it offset only 1% of US oil use.
Throw in the concerns about how to transport crops for ethanol processing, the damage done to not-unlimited local water supplies when brewing ethanol. Well, I have enough farmers in my family to be too publicly vehement in disliking ethanol…but still I can’t help but wonder if a few folks have fully thought ethanol through.