
Too all who dread December, I have some very good news...maybe even some great news. Well, after pondering this next question, I realized how dumb the answer is. How much corn does it take to produce a gallon of ethanol and how much petro does it take to produce that gallon of ethanol and how much per gallon of petro does it take to produce ethanol????
I know that was a run - on sentence. Its very shocking news!! It should be a dead issue, but I'm putting a stop to the myths right now. Anytime you see an E/85 pickup truck, its mandatory that you puke, cause I saw one the other day and almost drowned from holding my puke!!
Enough about this rant, here are a couple of facts from Alcohol:
Say WHATTT?!!!!
1. The average U.S. automobile would consume eleven acres of farmland to make ethanol fuel for one year. That same space of food supply is enough to feed seven people in one year!
2. 131,000 BTUs are needed to make one gallon of ethanol, but only provides 77,000 BTUS. That’s a net loss of 54,000 BTUs per gallon!
3. 1 acre of corn yields 7,110 pounds of corn to process 328 gallons of Ethanol. However, planting, growing and harvesting that much corn requires about 140 gallons of fossil fuels and costs $347 per acre.
4. There are 3 distillation steps needed to separate the 8% ethanol from the 92% water.
5. Ethanol costs $1.74 a gallon to produce vs. $0.95 a gallon of gasoline.
6. Subsidized corn causes higher prices for meat, milk and eggs because about 70% of corn grain is fed to livestock and poultry in the United States. Therefore, increasing the ethanol production would inflate corn prices.
7. If all automobiles were to run on 100% ethanol (no gasoline mixture), corn fields would have to cover 97% of the United States.
Back in 2007, Business Week had a much more balanced approach to this than I can explain. Mostly they focused on the cost of producing ethanol, and the subsidies required to make this a viable option for American consumption.
One problem with ethanol is its cost. It’s subsidized by the U.S. government at a rate of 51 cents per gallon, and federal and state subsidies for the fuel added up to $6 billion last year. As the number of gallons produced multiplies, so will the cost to the taxpayer.
Taxes aren’t the only burden that will fall on consumers. As ethanol usurps more of the corn crop, the price of corn rises, boosting food prices. Already, about 20% of the corn crop goes toward ethanol production, up from just 3% five years ago. That drove up corn prices 80% in 2006 alone. This week, Richard Bond, the chief executive of meat producer Tyson Foods TSN, warned that if corn continues to be diverted from animal feed, consumers will likely pay “significantly” more for food.
See if you're convince from the Ethanol Research Center.
I may be opinionated sometimes, but this time, I agree with David Pimental, a leading Cornell University agricultural expert.
Thats it, I'm out like ethanol.



