Yes, it’s true… the United States smashed another fuel production record this year. According to the U. S. Energy Information Agency (EIA), the country produced over one million barrels per day of this liquid gold in the first six months of 2017. Unfortunately, this isn’t something to brag about. It would be wise just to keep this lil record to ourselves, rather than broadcast it loudly across the energy news wires and Mainstream media.
Why do I say that? Because the U. S. produced a record 1.02 million barrels per day of corn-based ethanol, the lowest quality fuel in the world. Corn ethanol’s EROI – Energy Returned On Invested is so low, it barely provides one net barrel of fuel to the market for one barrel worth of energy that it took to produce it. I get into that in a moment, but let’s look at U. S. ethanol production since 2010:
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U. S. ethanol fuel production was 870,000 barrels per day (bd) in 2010, fell to 852,000 bd in 2013 and then continued to increase to a new record of 1.02 million bd in the first six months of 2017. We must remember, corn ethanol is blended into gasoline which is called ‘E10.’ All E10 means is that gasoline you buy at the pump can be blended up to 10% with ethanol.
This post was published at SRSrocco Report on JULY 22, 2017.
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