The Ethanol Papers - Paperturn manuscript - Flipbook - Page 414
10,000 golf courses. They all use fertilizer. That fertilizer contributes to the pollution that runs into the Gulf of Mexico, and yet, probably not one of those golf
courses grows crops intended for ethanol production.
So again, you have posed a question/concern that is fatuous. If you had a true
concern for the Gulf of Mexico you would want to ban all golf courses; all residences and campuses with lawns; and all farming, regardless of the crops
grown.
Plant life requires fertilizer of one type of another. So the solution is not to eliminate the use of fertilizer, it is to employ fertilizer types and techniques that minimize down-river pollution. One very, very good concept is to harvest the algae
that grows abundantly in the Gulf of Mexico because of the fertilizer and use it
to produce ethanol and organic fertilizer for the farms, golf courses, campuses,
etc. Not only would this be an excellent fertilizer but it would diminish the amount
of algae that exhaust the oxygen in the water that prohibits marine life from
existing in those areas.
5. You ask if I disagree with the contention that after being a negative net energy
producer, that ethanol now barely generates more energy than it takes to produce it?
I absolutely disagree with that contention, both by implication and by fact. The
question implies that only ethanol requires energy to produce, or that it has the
worst EROEI statistics. This is another disingenuous issue that shows you have
no understanding whatsoever of energy in general, and ethanol in particular.
All fuels require vast amounts of energy to transform it into a useable state and
bring them to market. This is true for coal, gasoline, diesel, nuclear, hydroelectric, steam, natural gas, propane, hydrogen, solar, methanol, or ethanol. Therefore, they all begin as being energy negative.
Some fuels, such as solar, may require little energy to capture and transform,
but their output is so restricted (with current technology) that it's not very efficient or economical for broad application.
The only question that is relevant is how much energy is required to produce
ethanol compared to gasoline. The answer to this question is that gasoline is
more energy negative than ethanol. Since you cite Robert Bryce, and no other
resource that might have given you the wrong information, I'm presuming that
