February 20, 2006
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Ethanol Cars Is STOOPID!
David Pimental, a leading Cornell University agricultural expert, has
calculated that powering the average U.S. automobile for one year on ethanol
(blended with gasoline) derived from corn would require 11 acres of farmland,
the same space needed to grow a year’s supply of food for seven people. Adding
up the energy costs of corn production and its conversion into ethanol, 131,000
BTUs are needed to make one gallon of ethanol. One gallon of ethanol has an
energy value of only 77,000 BTUS. Thus, 70 percent more energy is required to
produce ethanol than the energy that actually is in it. Every time you make one
gallon of ethanol, there is a net energy loss of 54,000 BTUs.Mr. Pimentel concluded that “abusing our precious croplands to grow corn for
an energy-inefficient process that yields low-grade automobile fuels amounts to
unsustainable subsidized food burning”.Neither increases in government subsidies to corn-based ethanol fuel nor
hikes in the price of petroleum can overcome what Cornell University
agricultural scientist, David Pimentel, calls a fundamental input-yield problem:
It takes more energy to make ethanol from grain than the combustion of ethanol
produces.At a time when ethanol-gasoline mixtures (gasohol) are touted as the American
answer to fossil fuel shortages by corn producers, food processors and some
lawmakers, Cornell’s David Pimentel, one of the world’s leading experts in
issues relating to energy and agriculture, takes a longer range view.“Abusing our precious croplands to grow corn for an energy-inefficient
process that yields low-grade automobile fuel amounts to unsustainable,
subsidized food burning”, says the Cornell professor in the College of
Agriculture and Life Sciences. Pimentel, who chaired a U.S. Department of Energy
panel that investigated the energetics, economics and environmental aspects of
ethanol production several years ago, subsequently conducted a detailed analysis
of the corn-to-car fuel process. His findings are published in the September,
2001 issue of the Encyclopedia of Physical Sciences and Technology .More Here.
