CornEthanol

For the past several years, the answer to the question of whether producing ethanol from corn is a net energy benefit or loss has depended on who you asked. An assortment of studies have come down on both sides of the equation. Michigan State University professor Jake Ferris comes down firmly on ...

The BP oil spill has reminded us that whether we love ethanol or hate it, it's still loads better than crude oil. Or at least that's what the corn ethanol lobbies would have us believe, according to Slate. With ethanol plants closing left and right, about 1.4 billion gallons of additional ...

Writing over at The Big Money, Dan Mitchell has coined a great new way for people who don't think corn-based ethanol is a good idea to express their dislike:

The U.S. Renewable Fuels Standards (RFS2) becomes effective Thursday, July 1 and it describes a whole lot of changes for the biofuels industry in the U.S in the coming decade or so. To prepare for the changes and to figure out just what's even possible, the USDA issued a "Regional Roadmap to ...

Following news that the EPA has once again not made a decision about increasing the ethanol content of gasoline sold in the nation's pumps, the ethanol industry is kind of peeved. The Renewable Fuels Association has issued a press release lashing out at the Environmental Protection Agency for ...

The debate over corn ethanol, and the federal government's strong support for the biofuel, is being debated across the U.S. Everything from the potential cost for damaged fuel systems to the possible Federal push for E15 is in the news. The discussion has even hit deep into corn country, where the ...

The nail in the coffin of corn-based ethanol might be made of water. The magazine Environmental Science & Technology has published an article that pegs the amount of water needed to make enough corn ethanol to move a vehicle one mile at 50 gallons. That's pretty high. ES&T calculated the ...

There are a lot of reasons why corn-based ethanol may not be best biofuel available to ween ourselves off of petroleum, most of which have been well covered on this site. Today, we came across one that we were previously unaware of, and, interestingly enough, it has to do with bacteria and ...

Conflicting study overload. That's the only way to explain all the messages that we're getting regarding biofuels recently. They speed up global warming. Ethanol is no better than gasoline. You know what I mean. Here's another one, courtesy of the totally non-biased Illinois Corn Growers ...

The University of Minnesota has released a study on the benefits of three types of fuels: gasoline, corn-based ethanol and cellulosic ethanol. The conclusion was what most readers know: corn-based ethanol doesn't have that many benefits. Corn still needs tractors to be harvested, and some kind of ...