Tuesday, August 7, 2007

Ethanol is the new "pork"

Ethanol is a false promise.

It's not sustainable in the US, and in fact ethanol likely won't decrease our dependency on foreign oil by any level that's meaningful. It doesn't appear that it will get better either, as recent energy reports from our leaders in the field concerning ethanol are confused, if not outright lies to placate the voting public.

"Interestingly, the RFA's page on industry statistics shows that ethanol production in 2006 was 4.86 billion gallons. This is 116 million barrels. Somehow using 116 million barrels of ethanol, with a per barrel BTU value of just over half that of a barrel of oil, displaced 170 million barrels of oil. To be precise, 116 million barrels of ethanol contain the BTU equivalent of 64 million barrels of oil."



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