Ethanol

The largest single use of ethanol is as a motor fuel and fuel additive. Brazil has the largest national fuel ethanol industry. Gasoline sold in Brazil contains at least 25% anhydrous ethanol, but blending requirements will be reduced to 20% ethanol for a 90-day period beginning February 1, 2010 by government mandate due to low supplies of the biofuel The U.S. has used ethanol and gasoline blends up to E85 or 15% gasoline and 85% ethanol. All biomass needs to go through some of these steps: it needs to be grown, collected, dried, fermented, and burned. All of these steps require resources and an infrastructure. The total amount of energy input into the process compared to the energy released by burning the resulting ethanol fuel is known as the **ethanol fuel energy balance**