That's what matters as far as the energy we need to drive society.
That's what matters as far as the energy we need to drive society. That sort of precipitation is fairly unlikely, since it's too volatile, and instability is against the interests of most people of significance. In fact it is silly to think that you can only reinvest energy you got from gasoline and not from ethanol.
Current lifestyles are unsustainable, at any energy intensity, and so will have to change. Seeing this was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. This only makes sense if you subtract the solar energy in the ethanol process from the ethanol equation. Comparing one refining process with the other's extraction and refining process is neither consistent or useful. In this case, the ethanol process would be extremely energy negative. Recently '3 years ago higher aluminum prices allowed higher electricity prices and they got squeezed out. Alternative Energy Sources to Build Ethanol Plant in Kankakee, Ill. However, just about every other energy source is subsidized in one way or the other.
As a society, we need to figure out a better economic model, with reduced energy inputs and work out whether converting some of that energy to liquid fuels is a good way to use the lower energy. You make the key point that there is a lot of misleding claims out there sent by government agencies and ethanol supporters. Notice the use of the word energy, I did it on purpose so to not let you mislead by energy container in the form of ethanol, coal, oil, etc. This response covers my biggest gripe about people who want to debate this issue. So let's add these benefits in to the equation, and save our energy for battleing for a winable fight. Brazil has made adjustments to account for fluctuations by varying the portion of ethanol in fuel. It does not care about the source of energy, but yes, you do have to take into account the labor for sugar cane. All energy sources are limited, because it takes limited resources to harness them. It seem like lunacy to deny reality, which Brazilian ethanol is.
For getting 8 unit of gasoline energy, you need only 1 unit of energy. When you compare apples and apples, the picture hopefully becomes clear. In ethanol, you only count corn as the source of energy that should be credited with a lifecycle perspective. And next I though methanol has higher yields for syngas. Fourth, It is more important to start towards a sustainable energy policy than to do nothing. This consumed far too much of my day yesterday, and I am working 12 hour days this week as it is.