Ethanol's a Big Scam, and Bush Has Fallen for It
Excellent article by Kevin Hassett on the ethanol subsidy scam: A recent careful study by Cornell University's David Pimentel and the University of California at Berkeley's Tad Patzek added up all the energy consumption that goes into ethanol production. They took account of the energy it takes to build and run tractors. They added in the energy embodied in the other inputs and irrigation. They parsed out how much is used at the ethanol plant.
Putting it all together, they found that it takes 29 percent more energy to make ethanol from corn than is contained in the ethanol itself.
What bothers me is that Bush isn't the only one who has fallen for this drivel. I've had several discussions recently with otherwise intelligent people who insist that various biofuels are economic replacements for oil.
There is no appropriate answer to this, except to call bullshit. Even if the energy output exceeds the energy input (as I will concede is the case for biodiesel derived from rapeseed and soybeans, if not for ethanol), the cost per gallon is far greater than oil costs now. And, even if we assume that oil prices will continue to rise, coal gassification and oil-shale production costs will remain lower than biofuels, meaning that biofuels can only compete if we subsidize them with tax dollars. Not just a waste of money, but manifestly stupid.
I know people want to believe we can have a sustainable energy economy based on renewable resources, but that just isn't the case for biofuels. Sorry. The numbers don't lie, and wanting something to be so doesn't make it so.
Putting it all together, they found that it takes 29 percent more energy to make ethanol from corn than is contained in the ethanol itself.
What bothers me is that Bush isn't the only one who has fallen for this drivel. I've had several discussions recently with otherwise intelligent people who insist that various biofuels are economic replacements for oil.
There is no appropriate answer to this, except to call bullshit. Even if the energy output exceeds the energy input (as I will concede is the case for biodiesel derived from rapeseed and soybeans, if not for ethanol), the cost per gallon is far greater than oil costs now. And, even if we assume that oil prices will continue to rise, coal gassification and oil-shale production costs will remain lower than biofuels, meaning that biofuels can only compete if we subsidize them with tax dollars. Not just a waste of money, but manifestly stupid.
I know people want to believe we can have a sustainable energy economy based on renewable resources, but that just isn't the case for biofuels. Sorry. The numbers don't lie, and wanting something to be so doesn't make it so.