WASHINGTON, D.C., July 20, 2005 -- The American Farm Bureau Federation today expressed serious concerns regarding a study it believes may be intentionally slanted in an attempt to discredit the positive role home-grown renewable fuels are playing to boost the nation’s domestic energy supply.
 
“ The economic and scientific assumptions behind the report released this week by David Pimentel from Cornell and Tad Patzek from the University of California, Berkeley, simply do not stand up in the real world,” said AFBF President Bob Stallman. “Objective analyses by respected members of the economic and scientific communities indicate, at best, Pimentel and Patzek likely relied on antiquated assumptions about the productivity of America’s farmers and the efficiency of U.S. plants that manufacture ethanol and other renewable fuels.”
 
Pimentel is listed by Cornell as a professor emeritus of entomology, ecology and evolutionary biology. Patzek is listed by Berkeley as being a professor of petroleum engineering.
 
Stallman said AFBF will continue to stand behind the results of a study conducted in 2004 by the Energy and Agriculture departments that concluded for each BTU of energy it took to produce corn-based ethanol, the renewable fuel yielded 1.67 BTUs of energy.
 
The 2004 USDA/DOE study is the most accurate reflection of the actual contribution that home-grown renewable fuels such as ethanol make to our energy supply, according to AFBF. That 2004 report number is probably even conservative, however, given the fact that the USDA/DOE study used 2001 production data. Since that time there have been additional efficiency improvements in regard to corn and ethanol production in the United States.
 
Past analyses of Pimentel’s work by USDA reveal that the Cornell professor has grossly understated a number of efficiencies of corn and ethanol production as well as grossly overstated the energy needed to grow corn and produce ethanol.
 
“ It’s a compound effect, and it truly must make one wonder if the researchers have not intentionally stacked the deck to make ethanol look as bad as possible leading up to a crucial vote on federal energy legislation,” Stallman said. “If that is the case, I think all Americans should be concerned about research that seems to advocate business as usual in regard to fueling our nation with imported oil.”
 
Based on an analysis produced by USDA, Farm Bureau said Pimentel’s studies grossly overstate the amount of energy needed to grow corn – by nearly double what other researchers have used for similar studies.  Pimentel’s study, according to USDA, also includes “the energy value embodied in farm machinery” used to grow the corn.
 
The Cornell research is also flawed from the standpoint that Pimentel often selectively uses a pre-1989 national average corn yield of 110 bushels per acre. The national average corn yield in 2004 was 160 bushels per acre. USDA’s analysis states that “yields have been increasing over time, so it is important to use current data to estimate average yield.”
 
Further drawing into question the validity of the Cornell/Berkeley research is the fact that Pimentel’s research has grossly overestimated the nitrogen and phosphorous requirement for optimal corn production, which inaccurately diminishes ethanol’s true energy efficiency, according to Farm Bureau.
 
“ Pimentel’s work is widely known for greatly exaggerating the amount of energy modern ethanol manufacturing facilities required to make this renewable fuel,” Stallman said. “Pimentel’s research traditionally has been known to negatively pad its conclusions about ethanol by including in his formula the energy expended in making the steel, cement and other materials to actually build the ethanol plant itself. And to top it all off, Pimentel’s research grossly underestimates the energy content and value of useful co-products resulting from the manufacture of ethanol, which are used for livestock feed and other purposes.”
 
Furthermore, the Department of Energy claims that studies such as Pimentel’s wrongly include free solar energy used to grow the corn as a negative in its energy balance equation.
 
“ One of the most beneficial things about renewable fuels like ethanol is that the bulk of the energy to grow the crop comes free of charge from the sun and is converted to ethanol to fuel America’s cars and trucks,” Stallman said. “Renewable energy must be a significant component and play a vital role in helping solve America’s current energy challenge. I think it is fair to question the motives of any study that goes so far out of the way in a failed attempt to prove otherwise.”
 
In addition to the USDA/DOE research from 2004, a body of other credible research over the last 10 years continues to support the positive energy balance that clean-burning, renewable ethanol contributes to the American energy supply. One of the most recent, conducted earlier this year by Argonne National Laboratory, found that ethanol generates 35 percent more energy than it takes to produce.
 
The following web page from the Governor’s Ethanol Coalition website includes a full USDA analysis of recent studies regarding the energy efficiency of ethanol, including past work by Pimentel -- http://www.ethanol-gec.org/corn_eth.htm