November 28th, 2006
I have often pointed out the current debate that discusses which is more important, food security or energy independence. To ensure that there is enough biomass resources to address both food and fuel requirements, scientists are urging for more research to improve agricultural yield.
It is quite surprising that many of the issues that are relevant to the actual expansion of the ethanol industry is not being addressed by the government effectively. According to the director of the Nebraska Center for Energy Sciences at the University of Nebraska-lincoln Kenneth Cassman,
"It's the core issue to ensuring that we don't come up short in food supply, and don't have high consumer prices, and can still maintain expansion of the ethanol industry."
And he is right. The trick of the entire biofuels business is ensuring that neither food nor fuel is sacrificed but both are taken into very close consideration. Read more about this here.
November 29th, 2006 at 11:17 am
Complete material and energy balances are the critical need. U.S. annual (2006) gasoline consumption is 141.6E9 gallons, equivalent to ~216E9 gallons of ethanol. Using a corn-ethanol yields as an example, 480E6 acres would be required to produce 216E9 gallons (gross basis). However, if corrected for all fossil hydrocarbon inputs, producing that much EtOH net energy would require ~8E9 acres. All U.S. corn production would be required to meet 1% of our current gasoline energy demands.