1. Welcome to Baptist Board, a friendly forum to discuss the Baptist Faith in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to all the features that our community has to offer.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon and God Bless!

Ethanol, is it profitible?

Discussion in '2008 Archive' started by hillclimber1, Jan 24, 2007.

  1. hillclimber1

    hillclimber1 Active Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Sep 10, 2006
    Messages:
    2,447
    Likes Received:
    0
    http://auto.howstuffworks.com/ethanol-facts.htm

    According to Dr. Pimental, it takes more energy to produce a given amount of ethanol than there is energy available in that ethanol. According to his calculations, producing corn and processing it into 1 gallon of ethanol requires 131,000 BTUs of energy; but 1 gallon of ethanol contains only 77,000 BTUs.

    But not all scientists agree with Pimental's analysis regarding energy efficiency. Dr. Michael Wang of the Argonne National Laboratory finds that it requires 0.74 million BTUs of fossil fuels to get 1 million BTUs of ethanol to market. That would mean a net gain in energy, not a net loss.

    Pimento estimates that powering a car for a single year using ethanol would require 11 acres of corn.

    the ethanol industry is actually burning large amounts of gasoline to produce ethanol, and that ethanol contains far less energy than the gasoline they consumed to produce it.
     
  2. billwald

    billwald New Member

    Joined:
    Jun 28, 2000
    Messages:
    11,414
    Likes Received:
    2
    If it is profitable then why does the govt subsidize it $1/gal?

    What will using foodstock for powering cars do to the price of food?
     
  3. KenH

    KenH Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    May 18, 2002
    Messages:
    42,034
    Likes Received:
    1,497
    Faith:
    Baptist
    Corn should be used for food, not to power our vehicles.
     
  4. Petra-O IX

    Petra-O IX Active Member

    Joined:
    Aug 23, 2006
    Messages:
    1,086
    Likes Received:
    0
    Back here in the Ozark Hills that would be a waste of good Corn Squeezins.
     
Loading...