Thread: Ethanol
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Old 02-19-2006, 11:43 AM
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Biodiesel300TD Biodiesel300TD is offline
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Tad Patzek from from UC-Berkeley, and some others are the ones that have done the reports about ethanol using more energy than makes. He is the Director of the UC Oil Consortium, so he is intertwined with the oil business pretty heavily. So it makes sense that he would say it takes more energy to make ethanol than it makes. Ethanol is currently made from corn. There are other sources that can yeild higher amounts of ethanol than corn. Cellulose is one. And there is some research going into ethanol production from waste products from other processes, such as sugar beet waste, I don't know what all is being research. I do know there is a grass called switch grass that yields more ethanol because it is higher in cellulose than corn.
There is some more indepth info on this on NPR's program Science Friday from a couple of weeks ago.
NPR Science Friday on Ethanol

There are some similar arguements about biodiesel. Currently most of the biodiesel made in this country is made from soy which yeilds ~45 gallons of biodiesel/acre/year. Oil from algae can be used to make biodiesel as well, and yields anywhere from 3500-20,000 gallons of biodiesel/acre/year. But there isn't much algae biodiesel production yet.
Point is, these alternative fuels are still in their youth, and will keep getting better.
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