there is some life yet in fossil fuel, page-27

  1. 13,635 Posts.
    lightbulb Created with Sketch. 39
    This article claims 1.34 for Corn Ethanol (still looking for sugar). But there are qualifications:

    We conclude that the NEV of corn-ethanol is positive
    when fertilizers are produced by modern processing
    plants, corn is converted in modern ethanol facilities,
    and farmers achieve average corn yields.
    Our NEV
    estimate of over 21,000 Btu per gallon could be
    considered conservative, since it was derived using the
    replacement method for valuing coproducts, and it
    does not include energy credits for plants that sell
    carbon dioxide. Corn ethanol is energy efficient, as
    indicated by an energy ratio of 1.34; that is, for every
    Btu dedicated to producing ethanol there is a 34-
    percent energy gain. Furthermore, producing ethanol
    from domestic corn stocks achieves a net gain in a
    more desirable form of energy, which helps the United
    States to reduce its dependence on imported oil.
    Ethanol production utilizes abundant domestic energy
    feedstocks, such as coal and natural gas, to convert
    corn into a premium liquid fuel. Only about 17 percent
    of the energy used to produce ethanol comes from
    liquid fuels, such as gasoline and diesel fuel. For every
    1 Btu of liquid fuel used to produce ethanol, there is a
    6.34 Btu gain.

    http://www.transportation.anl.gov/pdfs/AF/265.pdf
 
arrow-down-2 Created with Sketch. arrow-down-2 Created with Sketch.