ladycat
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Re:The Ethanol subsidy and Iowa - 2007/09/05 13:02
Hi. I'm new here. 
I have been around farming all my life. I am a chicken farmer, but I have been exposed to other types of farming since I was small. I am also well aware of the current green trends.
You are correct that it takes more energy to make ethanol from corn than is derived from the ethanol. The farmer growing the corn uses a great deal of energy producing that corn. It's not just his tractors that use energy. The fields are fertilised with synthetic fertilzers that are made from by-products of petroleum.
There is another problem. It takes 118 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of corn. It takes 21 pounds of corn to produce 1 gallon of ethanol. Do the math: 118 X 21 = 2478 gallons of water to make 1 gallon of ethanol.
California alone (besides a number of other states) plans to produce 1 billion gallons of ethanol per year from corn. I don't think California has done the math, because they don't have enough water to produce that much corn ethanol! That would take about 2 1/2 Trillion gallons of water! 
We do need alternate sources of energy, but we need to find something to use which would be much more efficient!
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