Thursday, March 13, 2008

um...

If "...it takes more than one gallon of fossil fuel -- oil and natural gas -- to produce one gallon of ethanol," then how is that saving gas?

(emphasis mine)

4 comments:

Tony M said...

Good question! Off to read Pith's post about (roughly) the same thing...

Hence said...

Where'd you think I got it from? ;Þ

Tony M said...

I figured as much. I did read his post, but it was late, and I didn't have time to write a decent comment (brain had pretty much shut down at that point). I'll comment at some point in the (hopefully not too distant) future... feel free to tell him to look for it! :)

Anonymous said...

Apparently, ethanol is "cleaner" for the environment. However, even though it takes more than a gallon of fossil fuel to create a gallon of ethanol fuel, ethanol, when burned gives off roughly 76 kJ (kilo-joules) of energy, whereas burning fossil fuel gives off around 115 kJ. So not only do you get less fuel, it provides less energy, too.