Anti-ethanol study roasted

By Gargi Chakrabarty
Rocky Mountain News

Colorado experts on Monday debunked a new study that says alternative fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel burn more energy than they produce.The study, by researchers at Cornell University and the University of California-Berkeley, said 29 percent more fossil energy, such as oil or natural gas, is required to turn corn into ethanol than the amount of energy the process produces.

The study also said it takes 27 percent more energy to turn soybeans into biodiesel fuel and more than double the energy produced is needed to do the same with sunflower plants.

"Ethanol production in the United States does not benefit the nation's energy security, its agriculture, the economy or the environment," said the study by Cornell's David Pimentel and Berkeley's Tad Patzek. They conclude the country would be better off investing in solar, wind and hydrogen energy.

Those results raise important issues for Colorado, where investors are pumping millions of dollars into two new ethanol plants in Weld County and a new biodiesel refinery in Monte Vista.

U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar, a Colorado Democrat who supports the production and consumption of ethanol and biofuels, has sought to include incentives for the industry in energy legislation before Congress.

Pimentel and Patzek included in the study such factors as the energy used in producing the crop, costs that were not used in other studies that supported ethanol production.

The study also omitted $3 billion in state and federal government subsidies that go toward ethanol production in the United States each year, payments that mask the true costs, Pimentel said.

The study, released Sunday, raised academic and industry hackles in Colorado.

Supporters of ethanol and biodiesel contend that biofuels burn cleaner than fossil fuels such as coal or oil, reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil and give farmers another market to sell their produce.

Bob McCormick, a senior engineer at the Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, said he was skeptical about the findings. McCormick said that since 1990, Cornell's Pimentel has done three studies, all of which contend that it takes more fossil energy to turn corn into ethanol than the energy derived from the fuel.

But nine of the 11 other studies conducted - many of them sponsored by the U.S. departments of Agriculture and Energy - found the opposite. Those show ethanol produces as much as 60 percent more energy than what it takes to make it.

"My opinion is that DOE's and USDA's are definitive studies and these other studies are not going about it properly," McCormick said. "Pimentel uses methodologies in his analysis that are not acceptable to peer reviewers in his field.

"He uses old data and doesn't take into account that agricultural productivity improves every year, that farmers grow the same or more corn with lower energy and fertilizer inputs.

"I, personally, think Pimentel has some agenda that he is trying to promote."

Jeff Probst, president and chief executive of Fort Collins-based Blue Sun Biodiesel, which is planning to build a $4.4 million biodiesel refinery in Monte Vista, said Pimentel and Patzek's research is "frivolous and not fully developed."

Probst said the biodiesel industry assumes a 3.2 positive energy balance. This means that biodiesel produces 3.2 units of energy for every 1 unit of energy spent on turning soybeans into biodiesel.

"I'd be surprised if (Pimentel's and Patzek's) numbers held up," Probst said.

© 2005 MSNBC.com