Using Ethanol Fuel More Efficient Than Using Gasoline

Looks like what I've been saying for years is wrong. Not the first time...

LiveScience.com -

"The study refined results from several previous studies by comparing the total energy that goes into making ethanol gas from corn, such as harvesting and refining, and comparing it to the energy needed to produce gasoline from fossil fuels. Kammen's team looked into levels of greenhouse gases produced by both the production and the use of each fuel.

They found inconsistencies and errors in the previous work, which had suggested ethanol gas might not be beneficial.

After correcting the errors—which ranged from incorrect unit conversions to reliance on data from outdated methods more than a century old—the researchers arrived at a very different conclusion: not only does corn-based ethanol gas reduce petroleum use by 95 percent, it also reduces greenhouse gas emissions about 13 percent, although that decrease is within a range of uncertainty for the imprecise data involved.

'Making ethanol from corn is a good thing if you want to offset fossil fuels from overseas,' Kammen told LiveScience. 'On the greenhouse gas side of things, it is not clear if corn, as grown today, is a good thing. We just don't know yet, but it appears to be a mildly good thing.'

Guess that's what I get from believing everything I read. Wait! I just read this! Now what do I do?