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Ethanol saps energy, study finds

ALBANY, N.Y. - Farmers, businesses and state officials are investing millions of dollars in ethanol and biofuel plants as renewable energy sources, but a new study says the alternative fuels burn more energy than they produce.

Supporters of ethanol and other biofuels contend they burn cleaner than fossil fuels, reduce U.S. dependence on oil and give farmers another market to sell their produce.

But researchers at Cornell University and the University of California at Berkeley say it takes 29 percent more fossil energy to turn corn into ethanol than the amount of fuel the process produces. For switch grass, a perennial grass found in the United States, it takes 45 percent more energy and for wood, 57 percent.

It takes 27 percent more energy to turn soybeans into biodiesel fuel and more than double the energy produced is needed to do the same to sunflower plants, the study found.

The study by Cornell's David Pimentel and Berkeley's Tad Patzek concluded the country would be better off investing in solar, wind and hydrogen energy.

The researchers included such factors as the energy used in producing the crop, costs that were not used in other studies that supported ethanol production, Pimentel said. The study also omitted $3-billion in state and federal government subsidies that go toward ethanol production in the United States each year, payments that mask the true costs, he said.

Ethanol is an additive blended with gasoline to reduce auto emissions and increase gas' octane levels.

The ethanol industry claims that using 8-billion gallons of ethanol a year will allow refiners to use 2-billion fewer barrels of oil, but the oil industry says the ethanol mandate would have a negligible impact on oil imports.

Ethanol producers dispute Pimentel and Patzek's findings, saying the data is outdated and doesn't take into account profits that offset costs.

Reports by the Energy and Agriculture departments have shown the ethanol produced delivers at least 60 percent more energy than the amount used in production.

[Last modified July 18, 2005, 01:38:10]