"Passage of this legislation would send an important signal to the market that renewable fuels, such as those produced in Indiana, will be fully embraced by our nation," Lugar said.

It is a fortuitous coincidence for a senator from Indiana that Indiana grows such crops.

I have a measure of respect for Lugar. I once shook his hand during some "grip and grin" event when he was mayor of Indianapolis.

His eyebrows are really wierd.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Help acquire and protect ecological hotspots, give to a conservation organization: http://www.saveourbiodiversity.com

RenewableEnergyAccess.com reports on a new approach to improving soil fertility:

Researchers say partially burning some of the residue left in corn fields (stalks, husks and cobs) after every fall's harvest produces products that can be used to improve soil fertility, boost in-soil storage of greenhouse gases and reduce the amount of natural gas used to produce anhydrous ammonia fertilizer.

Maybe this could also boost the ethanol industry?

I'm not sure it matters all that much if it uses more energy than it produces. As long as it is making somebody lots of money, it is going to continue to be produced. How it makes a profit (crop and energy subsidies) does not matter to those on the receiving end. My biggest fear is that this, like biodiesel, will become so profitable, that it will put all fallow farmland back into production (and out of conservation) and spread to South America and Africa, creating incentives to cut down the remaining rain forests.

The USDA research (word document, see table 3), after much pencil sharpening, has managed to show an energy gain of 0.06 BTUs per BTU expended to make ethanol out of corn (a ratio of 1.06). To put that into perspective, assume that gasoline was the fuel used to run the tractors, trucks and the processing.  After subtracting the energy used to make 1.75 gallons of ethanol, you will net the energy equivalent of less than one cup of gasoline.

There are 125,000 BTUs in a gallon of gas
There are 76,000 BTUs in a gallon of ethanol
1.06*125,000 BTUs = 132,500 BTUs
13,500 BTUs/76,000 BTUs per gallon of ethanol = 1.75 gallons of ethanol
A ratio of 1.06 means that you gain 0.06 BTU for every BTU of gas expended to make ethanol, so 0.06*125,000 BTU=7500 BTU. Note that there are 7812 BTU in a cup of gas.
(125,000 BTU/gallon gas)/(16 cups/gallon)=7812 BTU/cup of gas

Not real impressive, and probably too small of a number to be statistically significant (it may not be real, and certainly, won't be in years of lower than average crop productivity).

However, table 4, shows that if you account for something they call "co-product energy credits" you suddenly get and extra 0.77 BTUs of ethanol for every BTU expended. How does that work? Well, the same way any shell game works.

The only thing used to make ethanol is the cornstarch. Everything left over is called a by-product and is basically fed to livestock. For example, if you are feeding 10 BTU worth of corn to your cows everyday, and switch to feeding them this ethanol byproduct, you will truly be getting a 10 BTU energy credit. But, here is the catch, what if you are already feeding your cows a byproduct from some other agricultural product like peanut skins or soy hulls? You can't claim an energy credit twice. You can't displace a byproduct with a byproduct and get to claim an energy credit.

Another example, lets say that a rancher decides to feed his cattle this byproduct rather than let them pasture. Again, you don't get to claim an energy credit. What if there was a glut of these by-products and they actually had to pay someone to haul it off to the landfill? Could you get away with claiming an "energy credit" for making waste? I would hope not. You can only claim an energy credit if this byproduct displaces energy being expended somewhere else, which is often not what happens.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Help acquire and protect ecological hotspots, give to a conservation organization: http://www.saveourbiodiversity.com

Did you catch this post by Dave a few months ago? You have to wait for the ad to run.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Help acquire and protect ecological hotspots, give to a conservation organization: http://www.saveourbiodiversity.com

Pimentel recently gave a talk on this subject:

http://www.petrocollapse.org/resources/audio/20051005-0946-Pimentel.mp3

I am not all that impressed with him since he coauthored a paper suggesting that we could control population growth by limiting the amount of food grown based on a study of a monkey troop that had a stable population and a stable food supply.

He must be pushing 80 by  now. Anyway, he is also not much of a public speaker. While listening, I counted the number of times he interjected his talk with "ahhhhh..." (190 times). Still, it is worth a listen.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Help acquire and protect ecological hotspots, give to a conservation organization: http://www.saveourbiodiversity.com