Abstract
It is shown here that one burns 1 gallon of gasoline equivalent in fossil fuels to produce 1 gallon of gasoline equivalent as ethanol from corn. When this corn ethanol is burned as a gasoline additive or fuel, its use amounts to burning the same amount of fuel twice to drive a car once. Therefore, the fuel efficiency of those cars that burn corn ethanol is halved. The widespread use of corn ethanol will cause manifold damage to air, surface water, soil and aquifers. The overall energy balance of corn conversion to ethanol demonstrates that 65% of the input energy is lost during the conversion. Carbon dioxide sequestration by corn is nullified when corn ethanol is burned, and there will be additional carbon dioxide, nitrous oxides, and sulfur oxide emissions from the fossil fuels used to produce the ethanol.
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Students in the Spring 2003 CE24 Freshman Seminar offered at U.C. Berkeley by the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department
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Patzek, T.W., Anti, SM., Campos, R. et al. Ethanol From Corn: Clean Renewable Fuel for the Future, or Drain on Our Resources and Pockets?. Environ Dev Sustain 7, 319–336 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-004-7317-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-004-7317-4