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Is Ethanol’s Carbon Footprint Bad? It Depends
By Mr Ethanol | April 16, 2008
CNET News.com:
In the cleantech and carbon worlds, the carbon footprint of ethanol, whether from corn or sugar feedstocks and fermentation processes, or enzymatic or thermochemical cellulosic sources, is always good fodder (or perhaps, “fuel”) for debate.
And depending on which process and which study you personally ascribe to, the answer on how “carbon clean” ethanol looks depends. In most debates centering on corn fermentation, 
for example, the studies cite a range from say, 20 to 30% less carbon intensive than gasoline, to 20 or 30% more. This begs one very big question in my mind, what’s the difference? How does the same ethanol in my car have a possible carbon footprint range that wide?
The true answer lies in the ground we walk on. When I started to read a few of the studies and articles about them, an interesting fact emerges, the difference depends in large part on which land gets counted. Most of ethanol’s carbon footprint falls into one of several categories, in roughly ascending order (depending on the source and process), the fuel used to make it, the fuel used to grow or transport the feedstock, the carbon content of the fuel itself, and the lost carbon not sequestered in the vegetation that would have been on the land used to grow the feedstock.
The last one, land use change, is the bugaboo. Read more.
Topics: Ecology, Ethanol, Science |
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