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Originally Posted by lakedude
It seems to me that both sides of the debate have a vested intrest in skewing the numbers. Of course the oil people are gonna say it isn't worth the time and of course the soy people are gonna say that BD is the best thing since sliced bread.
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On the other hand, the
Cornell study has 1-1/2 pages that details how it arrived at its opinion on 'soy' based biodiesel's efficiency and the media articles even less; the study used data from 1990 agricultural information and completely ignored the value of the soymeal, glycerin, etc. (BTW: note that Dr. Pimentel and Patzek head the UC Oil Consortium at Berkeley)
The US Department of Energy's study, using recent agricultural data from the US Department of Agriculture (2002) concludes something far different from the heavily publicized Cornell story. Their report concluded that for every one unit of fossil energy used in this entire production cycle, 3.2 unit of energy are gained when the fuel is burned, or a positive energy balance of 320%. This study started with bare soil and took into account all the energy inputs associated with growing and harvesting soybeans: transporting and processing the soybeans into oil and meal, transportation and production of the soybean oil into biodiesel, and transportation of the biodiesel to the end user.
This 286 page PDF study can be found at
National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
It is disappointing that the Pimentel study gets so much press when a far more detailed report, using more recent data, is available to the media. Just like the
NYTimes writer interviewing hybrid owners and selecting comments to support the story's objective, I believe that most of the 200+ recent releases of the Cornell study have mislead their viewers and readers too.