Ethanol - the Miracle Fuel
I'm finally starting to understand the appeal of ethanol. It's a new, improved way for the rich and well-connected to tap into government treasuries. Let's see....
The feds give you a grant to help build the plant, then both the feds and your friendly state governments subsidize people's purchase of the fuel. It (debatedly) takes more energy to make than it provides, and we conveniently bar foreign sources. What a great fuel! Wish I was a former university basketball coach, state official, or just a plain old millionaire.....I'd be bellying up to the trough myself.
The feds give you a grant to help build the plant, then both the feds and your friendly state governments subsidize people's purchase of the fuel. It (debatedly) takes more energy to make than it provides, and we conveniently bar foreign sources. What a great fuel! Wish I was a former university basketball coach, state official, or just a plain old millionaire.....I'd be bellying up to the trough myself.
posted by Allthenewsthatfits at 4:33 PM
3 Comments:
Corn ethanol is energy efficient, as indicated by an energy ratio of 1.34; that is, for every Btu dedicated to producing ethanol there is a 34-percent energy gain. Furthermore, producing ethanol
from domestic corn stocks achieves a net gain in a more desirable form of energy, which helps the United
States to reduce its dependence on imported oil. Ethanol production utilizes abundant domestic energy
feedstocks, such as coal and natural gas, to convert corn into a premium liquid fuel. Only about 17 percent of the energy used to produce ethanol comes from liquid fuels, such as gasoline and diesel fuel. For every 1 Btu of liquid fuel used to produce ethanol, there is a 6.34 Btu gain.
But it is heavily subsidized !!!
Yes, except "More fossil energy is used to produce ethanol from corn than the ethanol’s calorific value," says T.W Patzek in "Thermodynamics of the Corn-Ethanol Biofuel Cycle," in Critical Reviews in Plant Sciences, 23(6):519-567 (2004), available on the Web at http://petroleum.berkeley.edu/papers/patzek/CRPS416-Patzek-Web.pdf
Let's not forget E85 delivers 25% less miles per gallon. No wonder so many people try a tank of E85 and then go back to good old gas.
Post a Comment
<< Home