Recent content by JohnCT

Ethanol from corn will not change our foreign energy dependence. There is no generation of net energy for corn to ethenol, so it can not reduce imports. The only way to calculate that ethanol from corn is energy efficient is to ignore energy inputs to the process. That does not change the fact...

As it takes more energy to produce ethanol from corn (Unlike production of ethanol from sugar cane, which is very energy efficient), the more ethanol we produce the more energy we use. How does that help our energy efficiency? Buying cars that get 35 to 40 mpg rather than 8 to 10 mpg would help...

It takes more energy to produce a gallon of ethanol than the ethanol contains. If one considers the energy cost of the ethanol refinery and the new tractors required to expand ethanol production and takes an energy credit for the distiller dryed grains produced, the balance is that it takes as...

Sugar cane grows in Hawaii (Maui). Ethanol requires as much (or more)energy to produce the ethanol than is contained in the ethanol. In other words, if one considers the ethanol refinery construction, tractors, fertilizer, irrigation, transportation, fermentation, distillation, etc for ethanol...

Check your mileage. Ethanol gets about 2/3 the mileage as does gasoline (ethanol is 35% by weight oxygen after all). Consumers Report did a study where E85 only got 72% the mileage of gasoline (10% ethanol). This equates to ethanol getting about 2/3 the mileage of 0% ethanol gasoline.