Study boosts viability of ethanol
Ethanol isn't the only answer, and wind and solar are getting more attention under the Obama administration, but the corn-based fuel should be able to hold its own, according to a new study by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
That's because farmers and manufacturers are better at doing their jobs more efficiently while producing less greenhouse gas, according to the new report in the Journal of Industrial Ecology.
According to the UNL research:
* The entire process of growing corn in the field to burning it in gas tanks generates an average of 51 percent less greenhouse gas than the production and use of gasoline, significantly less than previous studies indicated.
* Ethanol from energy-efficient plants generates from 1.5 to 1.8 units of energy for every unit of energy consumed. The best plants can produce as much as 2.2 units of energy per unit consumed -- much better than the previous estimate of 1.2 units of energy.
* At least 60 percent of U.S. ethanol is being produced in high-efficiency plants, a rate that should grow to at least 75 percent by the end of the year.
Ironically, the recent downturn in the ethanol industry, which saw the nation's No. 2 producer, VeraSun Corp., seek bankruptcy protection last year, might help improve the industry's overall efficiency, by forcing less efficient plants to upgrade or go out of business.
And unlike other alternative energy sources, ethanol is already available to reduce the amount of energy we are forced to import.
Ethanol will never replace gasoline -- as a University of Minneota report pointed out, diverting the entire U.S. corn crop into ethanol would displace only 10 to 15 percent of the gasoline used every year.
But it remains an important tool for us to use to build our energy future.