Nate,

You highlight an important point I want to elaborate on.

Crude oil is a very energy dense material that is refined into gasoline which is a less energy dense material by volume. We don't argue to much about how much energy is lost in this conversion because we can't substitute the crude for gasoline in the tank.

Conversely ethanol is trying to take something that has low energy per unit volume and convert it to something that has higher energy per volume, say cubic foot. Clearly we consume energy in the conversion but again the starting material can't be used in a tank only the end product.

So at the heart of the debate is that with fossil fuels you typically go down hill energy wise to the consumer product but in renewables its all uphill. If this premise is correct one will never find an equivalent energy replacement for fossil fuels. This does not mean that the liquid fuels (or even electricity) from renewables is not valuable in its own right.

What it does say is that we can't ever hope to produce the volume of end products from renewables that we can from fossil fuels. IMHO this is what is missing from the American debate. Not that there is no place for renewable liquids but that our overall consumption must change or those renewable liquids won't solve any of the problems.

There are some things that internal combustion engines can do better than brute muscle power. High torque at high rpm generates lots of horsepower to do work. Converting biomass to ethanol or biodiesel makes sense if you use those products for the right uses. Knowing when we need this mechanical horsepower rather than muscle power is what underlies our over consumption of liquid fuels today.

Peak Oil represents a liquid transportation fuels crisis, ergo whatever (now post-peak) liquid fuel strategy we should choose to implement, the PETROLEUM INPUT RATIO or PIR of the alternative in question (not to mention every human activity on the planet) is the ONLY thing that matters.

Syntec my friend, once more around the block...
This is NOT true, it only seems like it now. Environmental lobbies have been so good about beating up coal and nuclear that it appears there will be even more natural gas fired plants built. Artificially low natural gas prices are causing people to believe that they (and their derivatives; pesticides, plastics, fertilizers, etc.) are not limiting inputs. 2009 and beyond nat gas futures strip made all time highs last week. I am talking to people in the industry that tell me warm winters and mild summers with no hurricane have kept a short term glut but next time up over $10 we will go to $20++. I believe them.

Look at this chart:

Its only a matter of time before someone starts doing NATURAL GAS INPUT RATIOs on biofuels.

There are MANY limiting inputs to corn ethanol, not just petroleum.

Other than that I liked your post.

Ethanol (yes even corn ethanol) has a low PIR and the harder Robert tries to dance around the subject, the closer he gets to admitting it.

Ditto the btu charade.

Truly I expected more from you, Syntec. This was very weak. The BTU "charade" is meant to show the maximum theoretical displacement. Had I subracted out the petroleum inputs, the potential displacement goes down. The "charade" has nothing to do with a low PIR, and never have I danced around that subject. If you read a bit more carefully, you will see that that the topic being addressed is the claimed petroleum displacement by ethanol. The BTU content of the ethanol gives the maximum value, hence the BTU calculation. Did you really not get that, or are you the one who is dancing and spinning?

E10 (the primary use for American ethanol as mentioned by Gail) has no affect on vehicle mileage.

As you (must) know, that is contradicted by numerous studies. Show me an official government test in which no effect was demonstrated. I can show you plenty in which an effect was demonstrated. And you know that, yet you spin a different tale.

That said, I couldn't help but smile when I saw the following from your post under the R-squared ethanol FAQ:

I presume you also saw my response:

If you haven't noticed, there has been a decided shift in opinion in the last year on this. Look at the failure of ethanol to displace any/much gasoline, and the way it is impacting natural gas prices, and a lot of people I know figured out that this is good for the oil business.

Really, Syntec, was this your best effort? Instead of just coming out and admitting that the claims are false, we get treated to all this spin where you don't even address the subject of the essay.