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McCook Gazette
Editorial

Nebraskans have chance to support ethanol industry

Friday, May 8, 2009

The price of gasoline is creeping up again, hitting an average of $2.14 a gallon nation wide.

If a recovering economy boosts demand, can $4 gasoline be far behind?

Perhaps we'd be OK with paying that price or higher, if it meant more jobs, especially in the Southwest Nebraska oil industry, which has nearly ground to a halt with the general decline in crude oil prices.

And we'd be OK with higher gasoline prices if it made ethanol more attractive, putting the Cambridge plant back into operation.

But rather than wait for the situation to change, there's something we can do now.

Dennis Gengenbach of Smithfield, a member of the Nebraska Corn Board, is asking the public to support an increase in ethanol blend from 10 percent to 15 percent for conventional vehicles.

By increasing the blend to 15 percent, the United States can add 130,000 jobs and displace some seven billion gallons of gasoline -- much of it made with foreign oil.

Ethanol reduces greenhouse gas emissions, enhances rural communities, adds jobs and generates tax revenue for our counties and state, all while reducing the cost of fuel to consumers and reducing our dependence on foreign oil, Gengenbach said.

Nebraska's 26,000 corn farmers add $1.4 billion to the state's economy each year with the fuel, fertilizer and seed they purchase to put their corn crop in the ground.

"But, if we don't expand our opportunities for ethanol then we run the risk of losing that industry and important market," he said.

Farmers will be receiving a card to mail into the EPA in support of corn-based ethanol, and anyone can go to http://www.nebraskacorn.org or www.NeCGA.org and respond electronically.

"We have all worked too hard to see this industry and renewable fuel source go by the wayside," Gengenbach said.

We agree. Making our voice heard by writing or logging in to the Web sites is a way we can make a difference.

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  • Don't fall for this. To make a gallon of ethanol uses as much energy as it produces, then on top of that it drives up the price of nearly every food we eat. A lot of research has been done and some just completed the last few days that using corn is far from the best way to go. In the long run it contributes to global warning.

    -- Posted by geewhiz on Fri, May 8, 2009, at 10:37 PM

  • The ethanol blends used today have little impact on fule economy or vehicle performance. It also keeps high-compression engines running smoothly.

    http://www1.eere.energy.gov/biomass/pdfs/ethanolmyths2007.pdf

    The U.S. Department of Agriculture has determined that for every 100 units of energy used to make ethanol, 167 units of energy are created in the form of ethanol. Dozens of other studies have concluded that ethanol has a significantly positive energy balance. These studies take into account the energy required to plant, grow and harvest the corn -- as well as the energy required to manufacture and distribute the ethanol. But all those studies fail to compare ethanol to the alternative of gasoline. In an apples-to-apples analysis of all of the fossil fuel inputs for ethanol versus all of the fossil fuel inputs for gasoline, Dr. Bruce Dale of Michigan State University has found that ethanol has a +27% net energy value while gasoline has a -18% net energy value.

    When you look at the total production cycle of ethanol versus the total production cycle for gasoline, every unit of energy in ethanol displaces 22 units of petroleum energy. Here is the math: To produce 1.0 megajoule (MJ) of ethanol requires about 0.05 MJ of petroleum, while it takes 1.1 MJ of petroleum to produce 1.0 MJ of gasoline. Thus ethanol displaces 1.1/0.05 equals 22 MJ of petroleum for every MJ of ethanol produced. (Michigan State University)

    It takes 1.23 million Btu of fossil energy input to make 1 million Btu of gasoline at the pump--that is, 23 percent more fossil energy than you end up with. But with ethanol, it is the other way around: It takes 0.78 million Btu of fossil energy to create 1 million Btu of ethanol at the pump--in other words, 22 percent less fossil energy than you end up with as ethanol. Why the difference? In a nutshell, because it takes petroleum energy to drill for oil, but free solar energy to grow corn. (DOE, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy)

    -- Posted by SDPackman on Mon, May 11, 2009, at 8:35 AM
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