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Re: Ethanol and biodiesel from corn and other crops is not worth the energy
Wow Doty, you took more than the words out of my mouth, you added a ton of your own. Good work.
I don't know much about the actual paper itself, but it seems this is a person or group of people who have dedicated their lives to putting down renewable agrifuels, which may come with a lot of bias.
What I find interesting is that I've never read a report that mentions that energy cost of producing a gallon of gasoline. I want to see a side by side comparison of this to the amount of energy cost for producing a gallon of ethanol. Oh yah, and then cut out the cost of actually growing the corn, because the corn is going to be grown regardless. This is just a matter of whether we are going to let as much of it spoil on the ground every year.
Truth be told if this report/paper were telling the truth, then Brazil would not be able to sell ethanol at the rate it does to it's own consumers. More than 50% of all new cars being sold down there are flex fuel cars. And ethanol costs less than gasoline does down there (most of the time) and when it doesn't people buy gasoline.
On top of all that, to produce ethanol, one does not use the most expensive distillate of oil production, they use coal and other energy sources. Coal is not in short supply from the studies I've read, however oil is.
The idea on each farmer having his own still is ludicrous. However, having hundreds of medium sized facilities spread out across the US is already becoming a realized dream. This will greatly cut out the transportation cost.
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