Research says ethanol has no health advantage over gasoline
A new University of Minnesota study is bound to cause controversy in corn country: It says that corn ethanol is no better — and may even be worse — than gasoline for health and the environment.
Cellulosic ethanol, on the other hand, carries a big health advantage. Cellulosic ethanol, which isn’t yet produced in commercial quantities, is made from switchgrass or other non-food crops. Here’s how the Minneapolis Star Tribune summarizes the health-cost comparison:
The study concluded that the total environmental and health costs of making a gallon of gasoline was about 71 cents, compared with a range of 72 cents to $1.45 for corn-based ethanol, and 19 to 32 cents for cellulosic ethanol, depending upon the technology and type of plants used.
The Minnesota Corn Growers Association apparently is tired of fending off academic attacks on its favorite fuel. Its communications director, Mark Hamerlinck, told the Star-Tribune:
I’m stifling a yawn. It would be news if the university had anything positive to say about corn ethanol. It’s how they make a living over there.
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David Nicklaus has covered St. Louis business for more than 25 years. His column appears three days a week on the Post-Dispatch business page. 
And we really needed a university study to show what we all new to be true: ethanol is a government driven sham designed to boost the Ag lobby, placate the environmental lobby and serve only to increase food prices to the rest of us. Shame on our Federal Government…………again
Another nail in the corn ethanol coffin. When are we going to bury it?
I notice that this article fails to note that a recent study by the University of Nebraska estimated that today’s ethanol industry reduces greenhouse gas emissions by more than 50% compared to gasoline.
i wonder if the researchers at the U of MN bothered to contemplate what happens when more and more of the oil we get comes from environmentally destructive projects like the Canadian tar sands or hostile regimes like Venezuela? I imagine that might change the calculation quite substantially.
Eliminating ethanol production has only one guaranteed outcome: greater dependence on foreign oil.
By the same token Lancer, the amount of space we’d have to clear in order to grow enough corn to power our country would produce way more CO2 and endanger or kill way more species than further oil production.
Sugar beets produce a lot more ethanol than corn and do it more efficiently too because the startch in corn has to be broken down into sugars before the microbs can convert it to alcohol, with sugar beets it is just squish and ferment.
That intelligent comment by Mark Hamerlinck ought to get him canned from his job. What a stupid thing to say.
If the ethanol industry was truly interested in helping the environment, they would push for better use of ethanol instead of federal mandates of its use and phony reasoning for its use. If you build a better mousetrap… Ford is experimenting with a way of using ethanol that would increase gasoline efficiency by ~ 30% Invented at MIT.( http://www.pickuptrucks.com/html/stories/engine-tech/ethanol-boost/can-ethanol-boost-engines-replace-diesels-1.html ) I keep records of my fuel consumption and try as I might, I cannot get better mileage using ethanol than straight gasoline. I consistently loose about 10%. That makes it a lost cause the way we use it today. I think oil needs competition and ethanol can help, but open up Brazilian imports to compete and quit subsidizing it and let it compete on its own merit.