[MotoSook]

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The Congressional Research Service (CRS)/ Department of Energy (DOE) Report for Congress examined the carbon dioxide loading potential of corn ethanol versus gasoline and found that corn ethanol yields 37% as much CO2 as gasoline on an energy content basis. At first this number looks very encouraging but a closer examination of the report reveals key problems with this analysis. The main problems with the CRS/DOE report are:

1) - the most optimistic value for energy used in the conversion of corn to ethanol is used, 40,000 BTU/gallon (14,110,000 J/kg), 50,000 BTU/ gallon reflects a mean value for the industry.

2) - two different energy values are used for ethanol, 84,500 BTU/gallon ethanol (29,800,000 J/ kg ethanol) and 75,700 BTU/gallon ethanol in the calculations. A commonly used value is 80,000 BTU (28,200,000 J/ kg ethanol), the burning temperature at 25 C.