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“I believe the time has come to bring renewable energy into the mainstream of American thinking and American technology.”
~ Mike Johanns, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture
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Positive Energy Balance
Ethanol’s Positive Energy Balance
It takes energy to produce energy. The key is to “get” more energy from the final product than it “takes” to make it. Whether produced from corn, sugarcane or other grains or biomass, ethanol production is an extremely energy efficient process.
Ethanol has a positive net energy balance (NEB is the ratio of the energy produced from a production process relative to the energy used in the production process.), while gasoline has a negative NEB.
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A 2004 life cycle analysis completed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture concluded that ethanol produces approximately 67% more fossil energy than is used to grow, harvest and refine the grain and transport the ethanol to gasoline terminals for distribution.
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This means that ethanol had a NEB of 1.67 in 2004, compared to gasoline’s negative NEB of 0.81.
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