Quote:
Originally Posted by WesternStarSCR
Good grief. Does it still take more energy to make ethanol than it provides?
|
It never did,* and it still doesn't.
Every one who makes the "energy-negative" argument is referencing a study by Prof. Pimental, of Cornell U. Some years ago, he put out a deeply-flawed study that said ethanol production was, indeed, energy negative.
Subsequent follow-up studies failed to reach the same conclusion, and closer examination of the data shows several issues, the most glaring of which was no accounting was made for the post-fermentation "distiller's grain" that passed along the majority of the food energy to its original purpose of livestock feed. (Apparently Pimental assumed a hole was dug, and...)
His original paper was co-authored by some others at UCBerkely, who later *had their names removed* from the paper due to the severity of the flaws. Yes, it was THAT bad!
*(Given the first two laws of thermodynamics, it follows that 1) energy cannot be created or destroyed and 2) all real-world energy conversion is <100% efficient at producing the desired result...so ALL energy conversion is "energy-negative." What the argument here is, effectively, "Well, the sun was gonna shine anyways...so we'll spot you the solar input...and it's STILL energy-negative!" All studies (save one notable exception) finds that--discounting solar input--ethanol production is modestly energy-positive.)