Going bananas over ethanol.

There hasn't been as much excitement about alcohol in this country since Prohibition was repealed in 1933. Then, federal revenuers were busy chopping holes in stills and dynamiting vats holding hundreds of gallons of mash--a fermenting mixture of yeast and corn. Today government has a rekindled interest in alcohol, but this time it is proposing we build bigger stills and vats with thousands of gallons of mash in order to make the active ingredient in corn "likker"--ethanol.

Also known as ethyl alcohol or grain alcohol, the chemical enjoys unprecedented raves in the media, with bipartisan political support, as the potential fuel of the future. While presidential aspirants might leave their American Express cards at home, they are not going to leave for the Iowa caucuses without their polished speeches on the benefits of ethanol and the heroics of the farmers who grow corn to produce it.

Indeed, as a fuel, ethanol certainly appears to have significant benefits. According to its supporters, it:

* Is not dependent on foreign sources.

* Is renewable.

* Benefits corn farmers in the United States by funneling energy spending into agriculture.

* Produces less carbon dioxide.

* Is less toxic than petroleum-based fuels.

* Is an economical alternative to petroleum fuels.

If these were all true, and this were the end of the list, there would be no question that we should concentrate maximum efforts on ethanol production. There may, however, be other facts about ethanol's viability as a fuel that are not being considered before the nation plunges headlong into an alternative-fuels strategy that would have important economic consequences in the near future. And when these are considered, ethanol may no longer appear to be the fuel of the future that many people expect it to become.

Net Energy

It is a truism that it always takes energy to produce energy. The mining and transport of coal are very energy intensive as are the delivery and refining of oil. Even the capture of solar and wind energy requires considerable amounts of silicon and steel to capture their "free" benefits. On the other hand, mining uranium, for use in nuclear power plants, requires relatively little energy since so little ore is needed, but there is a major energy outlay in the enrichment of the [U.sup.235] content from 0.7 percent to about 3 percent so that the uranium can be used in U.S. power reactors.

Likewise, energy inputs are required in order to produce a useful energy-bearing fuel in the form of ethanol. But how much energy is required to produce a unit of ethanol energy? This is the question that will ultimately decide the future of ethanol production. If the energy input in order to produce ethanol is high relative to the energy content of the fuel produced, then ethanol would be inefficient as a fuel when compared to traditional petroleum-based fuels. If that proves to he the case, then it would be unwise to trade petroleum fuels for ethanol, thereby using a huge percentage of our farmland for little or no net energy gain.

Debate on this point has raged for more than a decade, and depends in part on the crop from which the ethanol is to be produced. In Brazil, for instance, most ethanol is made from sugar cane, while in the United States, most is made from corn, an inferior energy crop in comparison. Nevertheless, corn producers, ethanol processors, and blenders of gasoline/ethanol assert that ethanol products boast a positive energy ration of from 1.25 to 1.35--in other words, from 25 percent to 35 percent more energy than is used in the cumulative production process. Those opposed to ethanol, on the other hand, see its production as a wasteful use of fossil-energy resources.

So who are the major competitors, where is the battlefield, and what are the numbers and the basis for these numbers? In one corner we have Dr. Michael Wang, who holds a Ph.D. in ecology from UC-Davis. Employed at Argonne National Laboratory since 1991, he is the originator of the GREET (Greenhouse gases, Regulated Emissions, and Energy use in Transportation) model for assessing emission effects of advanced vehicle technologies and new transportation fuels.

In the other corner is David Pimentel, who holds a Ph.D. from Cornell University. A professor of ecology and agricultural science, Pimentel was chairman of an Energy Department Committee that first assessed the value of ethanol as a gasoline substitute in 1980.

The energy content of fuels is measured in British Thermal Units (BTUs), with one BTU being defined as the amount of heat energy required to raise the temperature of one pound of water, one degree Fahrenheit. Ten pounds of coal and dried oak have about 120,000 and 80,000 BTUs respectively. Of common liquid fuels for transportation, diesel leads the pack at more than 130,000 BTUs, gasoline is next at around 115,000 BTUs, with ethanol bringing up the rear at 76,000 BTUs.

Pimental and Wang, both highly credentialed scientists, differ widely on the efficacy of ethanol as a gasoline substitute. Wang's calculations, as shown in the table, take into account his calculations of the energy input in raising corn and the energy input required for ethanol production from the corn feedstock--with similar categories, though differing values, assigned by Pimental. But Wang has a category described as a "co-product credit," which adds an additional 15,400 BTUs to the energy balance. Pimental does not include this "credit."

What are the "co-products" that Wang includes and Pimental ignores? According the National Corn Growers Association, they depend on the ethanol production process used: dry milling or wet milling. "Dry milling ethanol plants produce distillers' grains and solubles together with ethanol, while wet milling plants produce corn gluten feed, corn gluten meal, corn oil, and other high-value products with ethanol."

Certainly from the standpoint of ethanol producers and other proponents of ethanol's use, it makes sense to say that the byproducts created by making ethanol--such as corn gluten feed--should be assigned part of the cost in energy needed to raise corn; it shouldn't all be attributed to the manufacture of ethanol. But, the attribution of part of the energy costs of producing ethanol to these byproducts of ethanol production only makes sense if the byproducts have a marketable value. If they are worthless, logically all of the energy costs should be attributed to the ethanol. Knowing that it is the stated goal of our government to make ethanol production from corn immense, it is likely the market will be saturated with byproducts, making them virtually worthless. Then too, equating a readily usable fuel, ethanol, to a low value byproduct of its production makes no sense if the plan is to increase our fuel supply.

Using Dr. Wang's results and removing the co-product credit, it takes 71,000 BTUs to produce a gallon of ethanol, but a gallon of ethanol has an energy content not much greater than that--76,000 BTUs, making this a gain of less than 10 percent.

Clearly this gain is an insignificant amount and certainly not something for which we would want to sacrifice millions of acres of valuable farmland.

Furthermore, even if the energy co-product credit is fully counted in favor of ethanol, that does little to help in comparison of the fuel with gasoline. According to researchers James Jordon and James Powell of New York's Polytechnic University, even if one allows "a net positive energy output of 30,000 British thermal units (Btu) per gallon, it would still take four gallons of ethanol from corn to equal one gallon of gasoline."

Ethanol's Odd Economics

If one digs deep enough into any economic problem, more often than not one finds that government is the culprit behind creating the problem. Ethanol is no exception. The 1977 Clean Air Act required an oxygenate--essentially a molecule with an extra oxygen atom--be blended with gasoline to promote more complete combustion. Methyl Tertiary Butyl Ether (MTBE) was the favored product but was found to contaminate ground water. Ethanol was an unpopular second choice because it has a low vapor pressure and its evaporation from fueling, open containers, and leakage was believed by many to produce more smog than the incomplete combustion of pure gasoline. Moreover, because of its propensity to destroy seals on pipelines, ethanol has to be shipped primarily by truck. Nevertheless, oxygenates, mostly in the form of ethanol, continue in use, even though problems with incomplete combustion in modern engines were virtually eliminated when sophisticated, computer-controlled fuel-air management systems fully replaced old fashioned carburetors by the early 1990s.

Since the time ethanol as an oxygenate became a required component of gasoline, two government actions have fostered the production of alcohol. First are subsidies to ethanol blenders who are paid 51 cents for every gallon of ethanol used as an oxygenate or to produce "gasohol"--a blend of gasoline and ethanol ranging from about 5 percent to 85 percent alcohol. The recipients claim that were it not for the subsidy, ethanol would be too expensive to produce for that purpose. So we see taxpayers paying out subsidies so those same taxpayers won't have to pay too much for gasoline substitutes. By the way, even though there are periods of corn shortages (e.g. droughts and floods), ethanol proponents are major supporters of the 54-cent tariff on imported ethanol.

The second, and even more forceful method of "encouraging" production is the Energy Policy Act of 2005 with its Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) mandating an increase in renewable fuel from 4 billion gallons in 2006 to 7.5 billion gallons in 2012. Although California won a lawsuit to exempt them from the oxygenation requirement, the 7.5 billion-gallon level for RFS would require refiners to furnish 825 million gallons of ethanol in California gasoline--an amount equivalent to the entire U.S. production as late as 1987.

Government activity, then, has introduced significant market distortions where ethanol is concerned. It raises the question of whether the efforts to encourage the production of ethanol have been undertaken for the good of the nation or for the benefit of some special interests. In other words, could ethanol be a new form of farm subsidy? More importantly, if ethanol were the miracle fuel its proponents claim, then it should have an intrinsic edge compared to traditional fuels in the market. If that were true, then demand for ethanol would prompt its increasing production, without need for government protection and subsidy of the industry. That protective tariffs and subsidies continue to artificially prop up the production of ethanol suggests that, in the market, the fuel has yet to prove its overall desirability.

Ed Hiserodt is the author of Under-Exposed: What If Radiation Is Really Good for You?

Energy Inputs (BTUs) Needed to Produce a Gallon of Ethanol

                                            Argonne
Item                                     Study (Wang)    Pimentel Study

Energy Input During Corn Farming            26,700           55,300
Energy Input During Ethanol Production      44,300           74,300
Co-Product Credit                          -15,400                0
Total Energy Inputs                         55,600          129,600
Total Energy per Gallon of Ethanol          76,000           76,000
Net Energy Balance                          20,400          -53,600