Quote:
Originally Posted by All Darc
Sugar cane ethanol it's way more efficient way to produce ethanol. Corn ethanol produces a X value of ethanol energy, but about 80% or more of energy it's used in the production itself, calculating in energetic ways.
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It's more than just a matter of energy balance, because the corn won't yield exclusively ethanol. Corn also yields oil, useful both for cooking and as a feedstock for biodiesel, and the distillation grain leftover from corn ethanol brewing has a high concentration of proteins per weight and is cheaper than soy protein. Weight gain on beef cattle fed with distillation grain is higher than for cattle fed with raw corn, and also leads to lower methane emissions originated by the cattle' burps and farts (it sounds quite dumb, but that's one of the subjects of complaint of the veganazis regarding the environmental impact of the meat industry).