The Ethanol Papers - Paperturn manuscript - Flipbook - Page 578
4. Producing ethanol requires more energy to make than it puts out (EROEI)
5. Government Subsidies
There are other lies as well, most of which are variations on a theme but a
couple are stand-alone lies. Bryce uses them all, and I’ll try to dispose of them
in the flow that Bryce presents them. Keep in mind that these are not Bryce’s
fabrication, these lies were conceived and honed over the years by people
working in or for the oil industry. Bryce has merely repackaged them to fit his
writing style.
As he moves in to begin his attack on ethanol, Bryce warns the reader that “the
discussion contains quite a few numbers…(and that) getting a grip on basic
production numbers is an essential part of understanding why biofuels and alternative fuels cannot replace fossil fuels.” This warning reminds me of the shell
game conmen plying their trade around Times Square in New York to pull in the
suckers. But it makes me laugh because Bryce has been the victim of the scam;
he’s the one who never got a grip on what the numbers mean.
ENERGY CONTENT
At the heart of the energy content lie are BTUs (British Thermal Units). Gasoline
has a rating of about 116,000 BTUs, and ethanol has a rating of about 76,000
BTUs. As a simple mathematical calculation will show you, this means that ethanol has about 33% fewer BTUs than gasoline, or another way to look at it is
that the energy content of ethanol is about a third (33%) less than gasoline.
Bryce uses this difference in energy content in three ways. First, he says that 1
gallon of ethanol equals only 0.66 gallons of gasoline. Second, that because of
the lower energy content that ethanol will deliver fewer miles per gallon (MPG)
than gasoline. And third, he uses the lower BTUs to compute how many bushels
of corn will be required to produce the ethanol needed to replace gasoline.
When combined with incorrect data about available land, water requirements,
CO2 emissions, and overall energy needed to grow the crops, he assumes his
sleight-of-hand technique is undetectable.
Bryce gets really good mileage (pun intended) out of the energy content issue
as he charts what the comparative numbers look like, and then writes paragraph
after paragraph about how this principle, almost by itself, negates any sensible
consideration of ethanol as a replacement for gasoline. Indeed all ethanol
