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To: Alastair McIntosh who wrote (29102)	5/2/2005 4:19:22 AM
From: Haim R. Branisteanu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116555

Thanks for the links .... it seems that it highly depends who is writing the feasibility studies and who is paying for it ..... quite sad that such an valuable source of research issued a misleading report. UNCORRECTED PROOF 258 Appendix A: Partial analysis of the argonne national laboratory report8 259 The debate on the total energy inputs of corn conversion to ethanol has become 260 politically charged and acrimonious9. Therefore, I felt that it is worthwhile to 261 scrutinize the 1997 Argonne National Laboratory report (Wang et al., 1997), 262 which is the predecessor of the 2002 USDA report (Shapouri et al., 2002). To my 263 knowledge, the 1997 Argonne report was also endorsed by the U.S. EPA, and 264 used to justify the EPA’s support for the increased reliance on corn ethanol in the 265 2003 Energy Policy Act. 266 The 1997 Argonne report was commissioned and paid for by the Illinois 267 Department of Commerce and Community Affairs, an organization in charge of 268 promoting ethanol production to provide ‘a huge boost ($4.5 billion) to the agri- 269 cultural sector in the Midwest10.’ The report’s purpose was to analyze the energy 270 inputs to ethanol production from corn and estimate their environmental impacts. 271 The study focused on Illinois (IL), Iowa (IO), Nebraska (NE) and Minnesota 272 (MN), which collectively produce about half of the U.S. corn and about 95% of 273 the U.S. ethanol. In his endorsement letter, the Governor of Illinois stressed that 274 ‘the study survived a rigorous review process.’ In the Executive Summary, on page i, the authors state: ‘A weighted energy 276 intensity for corn farming of less than 20,000 Btu/bushel was calculated for the 277 four-state analysis, a value that should be considered conservative.’ On page ii, 278 they state that ‘‘Ongoing and future efficiency improvements from retrofits and 279 advanced new plant designs should bring average process11 energy requirements 280 well under 35,000 Btu/gallon for all mills.’’ Below, I analyze both these statements 281 in some detail. The authors also state that ‘‘dry mills are not economically sustain- 282 able absent ethanol production,. . .’’ and ‘‘Co-product energy use attribution 283 remains the single key factor in estimating ethanol’s relative benefits, because this 284 value can range from 0 to 50% depending on the attribution method chosen12.’’