...Gore now says he supports second-generation ethanol to avoid using food, instead using wood, waste fiber, and grass. But the same Slate report shows that these technologies actually perform worse than corn for ethanol:
David Pimentel, a professor of ecology at Cornell University who has been studying grain alcohol for 20 years, and Tad Patzek, an engineering professor at the University of California, Berkeley, co-wrote a recent report that estimates that making ethanol from corn requires 29 percent more fossil energy than the ethanol fuel itself actually contains.
The two scientists calculated all the fuel inputs for ethanol productionfrom the diesel fuel for the tractor planting the corn, to the fertilizer put in the field, to the energy needed at the processing plantand found that ethanol is a net energy-loser. According to their calculations, ethanol contains about 76,000 BTUs per gallon, but producing that ethanol from corn takes about 98,000 BTUs. For comparison, a gallon of gasoline contains about 116,000 BTUs per gallon. But making that gallon of gasfrom drilling the well, to transportation, through refiningrequires around 22,000 BTUs.
In addition to their findings on corn, they determined that making ethanol from switch grass requires 50 percent more fossil energy than the ethanol yields, wood biomass 57 percent more, and sunflowers 118 percent more. The best yield comes from soybeans, but they, too, are a net loser, requiring 27 percent more fossil energy than the biodiesel fuel produced. In other words, more ethanol production will increase Americas total energy consumption, not decrease it.
Ethanol production wont dent the US demand for fuel. At best, it nibbles around the edges. But, given Gores track record on his endorsements, perhaps hes looking for another area for investment in Al Gore Inc.
Update: On that note, heres this from commenter Selias:
Google avaiation biofuels and algae. Then Google Al Gores investment into biofuel companies like Abengoa.
Then read this article last week in The Hill, written by none other than Abengoa VP, Christopher G. Standlee:
America needs new investment: In the next generation of biofuels
Then ponder the Federal lands and wetlands bonanza buy-ups in recent years, even pointed out by our very own Michelle Malkin.
Why would the progressive Federal govt need so much land? With quotes like this:
The Department of Energy says algae grown on a 15,000-square-mile area, about the size of Maryland, could theoretically meet the nations oil needs.
its easy to put this puzzle together.
Its all about Al Gore Inc.