The Ethanol Papers - Paperturn manuscript - Flipbook - Page 418
In 2005, Bruce Dale participated in a C-SPAN televised debate against David
Pimentel and Tad Patzek. Speaking on Dale's side was John Sheehan, Senior
Engineer, National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The debate was supposed
to center on the issue of net energy balance. One of the most important points
illuminated in the debate was that even if Pimentel-Patzek's finding that corn
ethanol production results in a negative net energy equation that gasoline production is far worse and electric energy is horrendously bad compared to both
ethanol and gasoline. After watching the video of the debate it's hard to believe
that anyone has taken Pimentel-Patzek seriously, unless all other opposing information is kept from the viewer. The entire video can be watched at:
https://www.c-span.org/video/?188549-1/ethanol-energy-policy.
Another report critical of Pimentel-Patzek was published in 2006 by Justus
Wesseler, an agricultural economist and professor of Agricultural Economics
and Rural Policy at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. He called the
Pimentel-Patzek work "flawed" and "misleading." This report can be found at
the Elsevier Energy Policy website.
Also in 2006, the spring edition of The New Atlantis (Journal of Technology &
Society) had this to say about Pimentel and Patzek’s studies: "Professors Pimentel and Patzek have published several studies on this subject, and these
have been thoroughly and repeatedly debunked in the scientific literature, in
government reports from the Department of Energy and Department of Agriculture, in congressional testimony, and elsewhere…Reputable scientists have
publicly called the work of Pimentel and Patzek “shoddy,” “unconvincing,” and
lacking in basic scientific transparency. The most recent dissection of their
claims, appearing in the journal Science in January 2006, found that their results depended upon “some input data that are old and unrepresentative of current [ethanol-production] processes, or so poorly documented that their quality
cannot be evaluated.” The complete editorial from The New Atlantis can be
found at:
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/addicted-to-bad-data.
In 2011, Forrest Jehlik, Research Engineer, Argonne National Laboratory responded to what he felt are the 5 most prevalent myths about ethanol. He said
that ethanol does not take more energy to make than it yields, “Argonne National Laboratory research has shown that corn ethanol delivers a positive energy balance of 8.8 megajoules per liter. The energy balance from second-generation biofuels using cellulosic sources is up to six times better…”
