Common Thread to Ethanol Debate: Reducing Petroleum Dependence

Green Car Congress: Common Thread to Ethanol Debate: Reducing Petroleum Dependence:
Aug 23, 2005

There was one point of agreement among the four scientists presenting their opposing positions in a debate on the net energy balance of ethanol: the US needs a replacement for its petroleum-based fuels. They just don't agree on how to do that.

Dr. Dale, a supporter of ethanol, would rather see the entire net energy balance issue go away. He commented that the concept of net energy is "dangerous...a convenient fiction, an academic toy."
"[The net energy balance] treats all energy as equal. That's simply not true. It ignores energy quality and deals only with quantity."
Using Pimentel's and Patzek's method, Dale calculated the net energy value of other fuels. By his calculations, ethanol, with an energy balance of -29%, is better than converting crude oil to gasoline at -39% and coal to electricity at -235%
"Are we going to stop burning coal for Electricity or refining crude for gas because they have negative energy balances? Of course not. But that is the direction the net energy argument takes us."
Dale's point is essentially a pragmatic one--he'd rather see the discussion focus on petroleum displacement than net energy balance.