latest study of corn ethanol production shows GHG reductions of 48% to 59% reductions vs gasoline &

And where does the nitrogen for that protein come from?

Fertilizers.

and where did the fertilizers come from?

Oil & Natural Gas.

Was the GHG contribution of amonia fertilizers factored into these calculations?

but not the GHG contribution of producing the fertilizer.

Two different things.

But thank you for the condescending reply.

consider. Here is a link to Farrell and Kammen's meta analysis of a number of studies of ethanol: http://rael.berkeley.edu/EBAMM/
This will give you a good intro to the factors that the people studying this matter have been talking about for some time.

That report is on a website belonging to the "Renewable Fuels Association".
I would take what it says with a large grain of salt.

They wouldn't have published it if they thought it showed any questionable methodology.

For example, did they count the worldwide impact on land use?

Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions from Land-Use Change
Timothy Searchinger,1* Ralph Heimlich,2 R. A. Houghton,3 Fengxia Dong,4 Amani Elobeid,4 Jacinto Fabiosa,4 Simla Tokgoz,4 Dermot Hayes,4 Tun-Hsiang Yu4

Most prior studies have found that substituting biofuels for gasoline will reduce greenhouse gases because biofuels sequester carbon through the growth of the feedstock. These analyses have failed to count the carbon emissions that occur as farmers worldwide respond to higher prices and convert forest and grassland to new cropland to replace the grain (or cropland) diverted to biofuels. By using a worldwide agricultural model to estimate emissions from land-use change, we found that corn-based ethanol, instead of producing a 20% savings, nearly doubles greenhouse emissions over 30 years and increases greenhouse gases for 167 years. Biofuels from switchgrass, if grown on U.S. corn lands, increase emissions by 50%. This result raises concerns about large biofuel mandates and highlights the value of using waste products.

To put up big cattle farms.

Or the artcle you snip does

Cutting down the forests really distubs me. I live in an area where the pear orchards are being cut and burned for the sake of planting vineyards. Habitat for all the animals immediately suffers. The vineyards are so sterile thatt he deer, badgers, rabbits, coons, skunks, snakes and other reptiles,a nd the birds lose out.

That bias doesn't necessarily disprove the article but it's important to note potential bias in a scientific study.

I'm not familiar with Yale's JIE so I can't really remark on their reliability.

If ethanol can give a net GHG reduction then that's great, but I can't reach that conclusion based on this one article.

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture and the Department of Animal Science.

The fact that an organization that is interested in using ethanol as a way of reducing our use of imported fossil fuels and the attendant production of GHGs reported on the publication of a study is no reason to question the validity of the study. I think this should be obvious.

An article about this study also appeared on a university of Nebraska Institute of Agricultural Resources web site if you are interested: http://ianrnews.unl.edu/static/0901220.shtml). (It provides a nice short summary of the study's findings.)

The study was reviewed and published by Yale’s Journal of Industrial Ecology (JIE) - a peer reviewed journal. Yale University is - and I am not a graduate of this institution - but I think I can safely say that it is widely regarded as a REASONABLY good university (actually I'll go out on alimb here and say many would say it is widely regarded as one of the premier institutions in the U.S.). I think you can consider the work of any of it's journals as reasonably competent and reliable (or at least, not of dubious credibility). From the journal's web-site: The Journal of Industrial Ecology is owned by Yale University, edited at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, and published by Wiley-Blackwell. It is the official journal of the International Society for Industrial Ecology. "

a recent study. I wasn't trying to give an encycopedic post.

I agree one should look at all data available before coming to a conclusion. Here is a list of research sites and articles. Note, some of these links will be a bit dated.

http://www.geocities.com/jwalkerxy/ethanol_research.htm

would make this distributed energy disaster, the suburban wastes, <em>acceptible</em>?

There isn't the <em>water</em> on this planet to fuel a fraction of the world's idiotic cars, and even if there were, the cars would still be giant heaps of poison.

There is no such thing as a "renewables will save us" clown who can do anything but "percent talk." It's fraudulent on its face.