What is Net Energy Yield? And what is the economic and ecological aspects side of it?

Thanks in advance.

Net Energy Yield

The Governors' Ethanol Coalition believes that ethanol plays a strongly positive role in America today by reducing our dependence on oil imported from unstable regions of the world, reducing consumer energy costs, improving environmental quality, and facilitating economic development. The significant rise in oil prices that began in 2003 has become a significant threat to our national economy as oil is now fully one-quarter of the national trade deficit and is the single most important cause of inflationary pressures.

However, these benefits to the American public from ethanol are all dependent on the simple fact that a typical gallon of ethanol produced in America today contains more energy than the fossil fuel inputs required to produce it. Said differently, all of the benefits are dependent on the fact that ethanol has a positive “net energy yield.” This positive net energy yield is made possible by renewable energy — the energy of the sun that is captured by corn or other plants and converted into ethanol in an ethanol facility. The solar energy that is captured by the plant and then converted to ethanol is greater than the amount of fossil fuel inputs required to achieve that conversion. In attempts to discredit ethanol, however, ethanol opponents frequently make unsubstantiated attacks on the net energy yield of ethanol. ^

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