Talk:Ethanol fuel energy balance

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POV

Personal opinions and research aside, this article is an ad for bio-fuels. This article is far too biased and slanted to be fixed. It needs to be tossed out and started over from scratch. Discussion of ethanol opponents is cynical, while pro-ethanol points of view are celebrated. This article has no place in any type of informative encyclopedia. Geopract 13:54, 1 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like the accompanying article is embedded with arguments, so I'd say it needs a discussion page.

Here are a few points I'd like to raise:

There seems to be an assumption that energy inputs for the process need to come from fossil fuels. I see this as being false, because this energy could be provided from nuclear, solar, or wind generators, either through the electrical grid or located on site. For example, the tractors need not be diesel powered but could potentially be battery powered with recharging stations located around the field.
I don't see ethanol as an energy source inasmuch as an energy carrier. Because nuclear, solar, and wind power are not suitable for most transportation purposes, it would be necessary to convert the energy from these sources into a liquid fuel. This is not unlike using electrolysis to produce hydrogen fuel or recharging batteries on an electric vehicle, except that some of the energy is provided by photosynthesis.
Note that electric vehicles have been shown to be economically advantageous despite the losses incurred from charging and discharging (a negative energy balance) when compared to gasoline or diesel.
Based on the above, I feel that ethanol production is certainly practical. The big question is if this is cheaper than other energy carriers, such as biodiesel or batteries. Is it cheaper to grow carbohydrates and use microbes to produce ethanol, or synthesize it from syn gas produced by burning biomass?

Smilla0 14:50, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Consider bio-ethanol produced from corn. If both distillers grains and corn stover are converted to chemicals, fuels or fertilizer, the greenhouse gas balance becomes completely different. Focusing only on energy balances is simplistic. We need to consider the quality of the product. For example, adding 5 or 10% ethanol to gasoline has major benefits, allowing gasoline to burn more cleanly and increasing the octane number. In this case, the energy requirements for bio-ethanol should be compared to the energy requirements for the production of similar safe additives (MTBE, for example, has been banned in several states).--Cbriens 06:51, 27 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Corn Ethanol will become a viable and energy eficant comodity in the future.

Currently it takes about 1 unit of petroleum to growe and process 1.5 units of corn ethanol but I’m pretty sure that with the

Advent and promotion of cheaper non-petroleum fertilizers and herbicides.
Increased corn acreage and conservation from new methods of farming.
Farming equipment and machinery that runs on E85.
Renewable sources of electricity for power and transport.
New more efficient and coast effective production processes and manufacturing methods being developed.
The discovery of new and better Enzymes for chemical processing,

The creation of corn ethanol will become a much more energy efficant and coast effective process leaving a greatly reduced environmental footprint.

All these technologies are curently being developed and progressing, and corn ethanol will become a much more viable product, and a great boon to our economy, our environment and our society.
With all these technologies under development, in just 30 years it will take just 1 unit of petroleum to growe and process at least 5 units of corn ethanol.
Making corn ethanol in the furture a truley enviermentoly frendly and energy efficant alternitive to petrolium and gasolien, and turning corn ethanol into truley an energy sorce and not just an alternitive means of procecing or storing oil energy. --J intela 01:29, 11 February 2007 (UTC) Besides it beets being a pupet to the oil comanies.[reply]

Currently, it takes oil to run tractor, it takes oil to produce fertilizer. Thus, it takes oil to grow corn. It is only fair to ask how much oil it takes to produce ethanol, and whether the oil can be used directly in place of ethanol. Though one day it will not take oil to grow corn, that day has not arrived yet. PoohbearGA 17:41, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't "take" oil to grow corn. Our current agricultural scale requires a certain amount of nitrogen (fertility), most of which must be artificially fixed from the atmosphere via the Haber process. Currently the cheapest thing to use to generate the heat for the Haber process is oil. --WayneMokane 21:55, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The point of asking the "energy balance" question in the first place is to determine whether ethanol can be used as a renewable energy source (not just a carrier). If it is net-positive (ratio > 1) then it would be viable to set up a farm and production plant where the tractors and everything run on ethanol.

It does seem that the page itself is being used as a debate forum, riddled with opinions. To clean it up, the arguments should be summarized from cited published works or deleted, IMHO. -- 19:44, 06 March 2007 (UTC)

I would include energy balance for cellulosic ethanol, using solar power and trucks with ethanol engines to transport it from production facilities to fuel-stations. --Altermike 08:02, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This seems to be a relevant citation for this topic: Ethanol's Energy Return on Investment: A Survey of the Literature 1990-Present, Hammerschlag, R., Environ. Sci. Technol.; (Policy Analysis); 2006; 40(6); 1744-1750. DOI: 10.1021/es052024h (74.220.68.194 06:14, 29 May 2007 (UTC))[reply]

This article is junk

It should be merged into the ethanol fuel article or deleted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.142.231.40 (talk • contribs) 23:06, 16 July 2007

Debates are for the talk page

This article is funny. There are alternating unsourced "point-counterpoint" sequences in several areas of the article. I agree with those saying this article is junk. The whole debate seems kind of silly to me anyway. If it turns out to have a negative energy balance, then it's not going to be profitable. If it catches on and becomes as important to society as oil is now, then it obviously had a positive energy balance. If the "energy balance" debate belongs in an encyclopedia at all, it probably should just be a small paragraph in an article on farm subsidies (the government wasting some tax money is, as far as I can see, the only real issue affected by this). Mbarbier (talk) 01:27, 29 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ethanol fuel energy balance new start

The article has been cleaned up and a lot of issues have been resolved. The tags are therefore removed. If there are still issues please start a new discussion. Thanks V8rik (talk) 16:35, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ethanol EROI and bad article

The numerous articles on this site concerning ethanol put different numbers for the EROI. Many links are broken. The sugar cane ethanol number is based off a 2008 study, it is now 7 years old. Nearly every study is from about 2007.

These ethanol articles are very out of date. Some of the numbers have not changed much, but the studies have. I believe this should be merged with the primary ethanol fuel article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel

I also propose that a template is added to each ethanol article stating that these articles are outdated and contradictory. Many articles need a template asking for new sources because many claims do not have in-text citations. 174.101.99.191 (talk) 14:23, 22 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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Updating or Merging

This article either needs a serious update to make sure that the data here matches current reality, or the relevant sections need to be moved to the Ethanol page and this page removed. Ethanol and corn production have significantly changed since 2008 and energy ratio is much more complicated than the chart on the right would suggest. Shenalan (talk) 15:32, 15 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]