Nowadays, in many states, ethanol based on corn is mixed with gasoline, but there is still fierce debate about whether it is worth investing energy and resources to grow corn. A new study is expected to resolve this debate. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley have found that producing ethanol requires much less oil than producing gasoline, and the environmental impact is also comparable. Once cellulose technology can effectively convert agricultural waste into ethanol, the impact on the environment will be further reduced.

According to a new analysis by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, replacing gasoline with ethanol can save on oil, and the environmental impact may not be worse than burning gasoline.

However, researchers point out that the new technology currently being developed has the potential to make ethanol a truly "green" fuel, with much less environmental impact than gasoline.

This analytical article, published in this week's Science magazine, attempts to address the ongoing debate on whether ethanol can effectively replace gasoline, thereby reducing the United States' dependence on foreign oil and supporting farmers in bargaining. The study at the University of California, Berkeley balanced these views with other studies, which claimed that planting corn to produce ethanol requires more energy than burning ethanol.

Dan Kammen and Alex Farrell from the Energy and Resources Group at the University of California, Berkeley, along with their students Rich Plevin, Brian Turner, and Andy Jones, as well as Professor Michael O'Hare from the Goldman Sachs School of Public Policy, deconstructed six eye-catching independent studies on ethanol. They evaluated the hypotheses of these studies, and then reanalyzed each hypothesis after correcting for incorrect, inconsistent, and outdated information related to the energy consumed in growing corn and producing ethanol, as well as the energy generated in the form of fuel and corn by-products.

Once these six studies have made these changes, each has reached the same conclusion about energy: using corn to produce ethanol uses much less oil than producing gasoline. However, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley point out that there is still significant uncertainty in greenhouse gas emissions, and other environmental impacts such as soil erosion have not yet been quantified.

Carmen, co director of the Environmental Research Institute at the University of California, Berkeley, and outstanding energy chairman of the University of California, Berkeley in 1935, said, "Using various inputs to grow corn and produce ethanol, and using it for cars, is better than directly using gasoline and fossil fuels

He said that despite uncertainty, in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, ethanol extracted from corn seems to be slightly better than gasoline, possibly only 10% or 15%.

Those who say ethanol is not good are completely wrong, "he said. But this is not a huge victory, you will not rebuild our economy around corn ethanol

The author points out that if ethanol is not produced from corn, but from lignocellulosic plants (cellulose), then this transformation is worthwhile.