Is it true that converting crops like corn into ethanol actually uses more energy than is produced?
–Leslie Foster, Eau Claire, WI Recent revelations by Berkeley researcher Tad Patzek have fueled vigorous debate about the wisdom of using fuels such as ethanol to reduce our reliance on oil and our contribution to global warming. Patzek’s research concluded that producing ethanol actually uses more energy than the resulting fuel can generate. “Ethanol production using corn grain required 29 percent more fossil energy than the ethanol fuel produced,” reported Patzek in the journal Natural Resources Research last winter. He added that ethanol produced from other common sources, such as biomass (wood products and agricultural waste), requires 50 percent or more fossil fuel derived energy than the ethanol that results can produce. “People tend to think of ethanol and see an endless cycle: Corn is used to produce ethanol, ethanol is burned and gives off carbon dioxide, and corn uses the carbon dioxide as it grows,” says Patzek. “But that isn’t the case. Fossil fuel actually drives the whol
