The Ethanol Papers - Paperturn manuscript - Flipbook - Page 619
Another study, conducted by the United States Department of Agriculture, was
presented in 2007 at UC Berkeley – what a coincidence - by Roger Conway,
Office of Energy Policy and New Uses at the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). The report showed huge discrepancies in the figures that Pimentel and Patzek used to arrive at their conclusions versus the figures used
by USDA’s efforts to conduct their own studies on ethanol vs. gasoline EROEI.
The USDA studies were significantly more favorable towards ethanol production.
A Michigan State University study conducted by Bruce Dale, Professor of
Chemical Engineering, found that the Pimentel-Patzek methodology is flawed.
The measurements of BTU are irrelevant and that the net energy of ethanol is
actually higher than gasoline (in other words, EROEI for ethanol is positive,
while the EROEI of gasoline is more negative).
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 by CLICKING HERE
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
