The Oil Drum: E3 Biofuels: Responsible Ethanol?

I hope it is clear that my opposition to ethanol has nothing to do with the fuel itself. If we could make sufficient ethanol with little or no fossil fuel inputs, ethanol could be a very important piece of a post-petroleum future. If ethanol could be produced with an EROEI of 3 or 4, as opposed to the current 1-1.3 or so, then ethanol begins to look attractive from a sustainability standpoint.

My opposition to ethanol is due to the way we typically make it in the U.S., and is specifically focused on grain ethanol. We take fossil fuels and basically recycle them into ethanol in a very inefficient manner. Ethanol production may be a good solution for countries like Brazil, that don’t rely on large fossil fuel inputs into the process (as long as they aren’t depleting their topsoil and cutting down their rainforests). Cellulosic ethanol may ultimately provide ethanol at a substantially better energy return than grain ethanol, but as a recent Car & Driver article put it: “If cellulosic ethanol were easy, it would already be on the road, because the government has been seriously funding research for about 30 years.”

But let’s take a look at E3 Biofuels. Are they “responsible ethanol?”
Much more after the jump to The Oil Drum.