There is a pretty good article in the July 2006 issue of "Car & Driver" by
Patrick Bedard regarding ethanol. The latest, updated, study from Berkeley
cites a range of from 5% to 26% "new" energy in ethanol, depending upon
which assumptions are used. That is, the net energy after what is required
to produce the ethanol. Even using the most favorable assumptions and the
26% figure, ethanol would only reduce America's use of fossil fuel energy
by 2/10 of 1%!! Note also that according to the US Dept. of Energy, E85
(85% ethanol and 15% gasoline) has 43% more HC in the exhaust.
Detroit is making "flex fuel" vehicles to get the CAFE for their light
trucks (read SUV's) down below the mandated 22.2 MPG. The way the goverment
figures the E85 fuel economy is by using only the gasoline used, 15% of the
total!! This is then averaged with the 100% gasoline milage. Cute! Only a
beurocrat could come up with that one.
Lastly, the Federal government is currently subsidizing ethanol to the
tune of $0.51 per gallon. And it takes about 1.5 gallons of ethanol to
equal the energy in a gallon of gasoline.
I think it's like the man said, "There ain't no such thing as a free
lunch."
For a good read on the environmentalist "cult" or more properly "business",
try Michael Crichton's "State of Fear". A work of fiction but with a great
deal of annotated and footnoted hard data that you probably won't read in
the main stream press.
My nickels worth.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bill Babcock" <BillB@bnj.com>
To: <greenman62@hotmail.com>
Cc: <S.Janzen@comcast.net>; <wensley@adelphia.net>;
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Sent: Wednesday, June 14, 2006 2:13 PM
Subject: Mea Culpa Re: [FOT] Reality check: Hybrid hype and HOV cutoff in 07
> Actually, regarding the net energy production of Biofuels I appear to be
> very wrong. I asked an energy economist friend of mine for recent numbers
> and he said I was all wet to begin with. The study I am most familar with
> by a guy named Pimental and a Berkley economist named Paztek (as I
> recall) have been supplanted by newer data. Of course most of the new
> data comes from somewhat suspect sources, but so was Pimental, and the
> new data looks fairly convincing. Ethanol may deliver as much as a 34
> percent gain on the fuel used to make it. Biodiesel is about the same
> currently, but could achieve higher efficiencies and the byproducts have
> value and represent energy. As usual there is a lot of variation in
> available data, but I just spent an enjoyable morning reading some of the
> papers. I forsee a sea of waving soy all across Kansas (does soy wave?).
>
> Thirty four percent ain't bad, especially since most of the energy
> expended (about 60 percent) is non-liquid fuel. My friend tells me we are
> also the Saudi Arabia of Corn. We don't currently have enough production
> to come close to meeting demand, but that will probably change.
>
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