Nebraska Ethanol's Carbon Footprint

Authors

Richard K. Perrin, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Diego Alvarez, University of NebraskaFollow

ORCID IDs

Richard K. Perrin

Date of this Version

2-10-2010

Document Type

Article

Comments

Published by the Department of Agricultural Economics, University of Nebraska – Lincoln. Copyright 2010 Regents of the University of Nebraska.

Abstract

If burning a gallon of ethanol emits less greenhouse gas or GHGs (CO₂, primarily), than the gasoline it replaces then it has a smaller carbon footprint than gasoline. Actually, it is the amount of fossil CO₂ emitted that matters, because CO₂ from fossil fuels represents "new" carbon in the atmosphere, whereas the CO₂ released by corn ethanol is recycled atmospheric carbon.