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DE Pauley wrote:
An update of my previous post. I ignored the difference in energy
content of ethanol and gasoline. When the correct energy content of
ethanol is used, the residual product would be about 2 billion tons.
Of the 19% of the land that is considerd arable, 15.5% is currently
under cultivation. If the uncultivated land were used for ethanol, it
would produce only about one third of that needed to replace petroleum.
Also the arable land is decreasing (urban sprawl, etc) about 0.6% per
year. Using arable land to produce ethanol is really dumb.
Though ethanol is a substitute for gasoline, its production uses
much more energy per unit output than biodiesel. I believe one can
get about twice the energy from a biodiesel crop as ethanol. At one
time, I had a reference that addressed this issue, but lost it.
Perhaps someone else has a reference.
--
Humbly--Ed
"If the man doesn't believe as we do,
we say he is a crank, and that settles it.
I mean, it does nowadays, because now we
can't burn him." (Mark Twain)
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